Federalist Papers Number 65—Hamilton

Consider this about the Supreme and Impeachment

FOUNDERS LIBRARY: MAJOR WORKS

Friday, March 7, 1788

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Powers of the Senate (Continued)

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THE remaining powers which the plan of the convention allots to the Senate, in a distinct capacity, are comprised in their participation with the executive in the appointment to offices, and in their judicial character as a court for the trial of impeachments. As in the business of appointments the executive will be the principal agent, the provisions relating to it will most properly be discussed in the examination of that department. We will, therefore, conclude this head with a view of the judicial character of the Senate.

A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.

The delicacy and magnitude of a trust which so deeply concerns the political reputation and existence of every man engaged in the administration of public affairs, speak for themselves. The difficulty of placing it rightly, in a government resting entirely on the basis of periodical elections, will as readily be perceived, when it is considered that the most conspicuous characters in it will, from that circumstance, be too often the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the most numerous faction, and on this account, can hardly be expected to possess the requisite neutrality towards those whose conduct may be the subject of scrutiny.

The convention, it appears, thought the Senate the most fit depositary of this important trust. Those who can best discern the intrinsic difficulty of the thing, will be least hasty in condemning that opinion, and will be most inclined to allow due weight to the arguments which may be supposed to have produced it.

What, it may be asked, is the true spirit of the institution itself? Is it not designed as a method of NATIONAL INQUEST into the conduct of public men? If this be the design of it, who can so properly be the inquisitors for the nation as the representatives of the nation themselves? It is not disputed that the power of originating the inquiry, or, in other words, of preferring the impeachment, ought to be lodged in the hands of one branch of the legislative body. Will not the reasons which indicate the propriety of this arrangement strongly plead for an admission of the other branch of that body to a share of the inquiry? The model from which the idea of this institution has been borrowed, pointed out that course to the convention. In Great Britain it is the province of the House of Commons to prefer the impeachment, and of the House of Lords to decide upon it. Several of the State constitutions have followed the example. As well the latter, as the former, seem to have regarded the practice of impeachments as a bridle in the hands of the legislative body upon the executive servants of the government. Is not this the true light in which it ought to be regarded?

Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel confidence enough in its own situation, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an individual accused, and the representatives of the people, his accusers?

Could the Supreme Court have been relied upon as answering this description? It is much to be doubted, whether the members of that tribunal would at all times be endowed with so eminent a portion of fortitude, as would be called for in the execution of so difficult a task; and it is still more to be doubted, whether they would possess the degree of credit and authority, which might, on certain occasions, be indispensable towards reconciling the people to a decision that should happen to clash with an accusation brought by their immediate representatives. A deficiency in the first, would be fatal to the accused; in the last, dangerous to the public tranquillity. The hazard in both these respects, could only be avoided, if at all, by rendering that tribunal more numerous than would consist with a reasonable attention to economy. The necessity of a numerous court for the trial of impeachments, is equally dictated by the nature of the proceeding. This can never be tied down by such strict rules, either in the delineation of the offense by the prosecutors, or in the construction of it by the judges, as in common cases serve to limit the discretion of courts in favor of personal security. There will be no jury to stand between the judges who are to pronounce the sentence of the law, and the party who is to receive or suffer it. The awful discretion which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons.

These considerations seem alone sufficient to authorize a conclusion, that the Supreme Court would have been an improper substitute for the Senate, as a court of impeachments. There remains a further consideration, which will not a little strengthen this conclusion. It is this: The punishment which may be the consequence of conviction upon impeachment, is not to terminate the chastisement of the offender. After having been sentenced to a prepetual ostracism from the esteem and confidence, and honors and emoluments of his country, he will still be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. Would it be proper that the persons who had disposed of his fame, and his most valuable rights as a citizen in one trial, should, in another trial, for the same offense, be also the disposers of his life and his fortune? Would there not be the greatest reason to apprehend, that error, in the first sentence, would be the parent of error in the second sentence? That the strong bias of one decision would be apt to overrule the influence of any new lights which might be brought to vary the complexion of another decision? Those who know anything of human nature, will not hesitate to answer these questions in the affirmative; and will be at no loss to perceive, that by making the same persons judges in both cases, those who might happen to be the objects of prosecution would, in a great measure, be deprived of the double security intended them by a double trial. The loss of life and estate would often be virtually included in a sentence which, in its terms, imported nothing more than dismission from a present, and disqualification for a future, office. It may be said, that the intervention of a jury, in the second instance, would obviate the danger. But juries are frequently influenced by the opinions of judges. They are sometimes induced to find special verdicts, which refer the main question to the decision of the court. Who would be willing to stake his life and his estate upon the verdict of a jury acting under the auspices of judges who had predetermined his guilt?

Would it have been an improvement of the plan, to have united the Supreme Court with the Senate, in the formation of the court of impeachments? This union would certainly have been attended with several advantages; but would they not have been overbalanced by the signal disadvantage, already stated, arising from the agency of the same judges in the double prosecution to which the offender would be liable? To a certain extent, the benefits of that union will be obtained from making the chief justice of the Supreme Court the president of the court of impeachments, as is proposed to be done in the plan of the convention; while the inconveniences of an entire incorporation of the former into the latter will be substantially avoided. This was perhaps the prudent mean. I forbear to remark upon the additional pretext for clamor against the judiciary, which so considerable an augmentation of its authority would have afforded.

Would it have been desirable to have composed the court for the trial of impeachments, of persons wholly distinct from the other departments of the government? There are weighty arguments, as well against, as in favor of, such a plan. To some minds it will not appear a trivial objection, that it could tend to increase the complexity of the political machine, and to add a new spring to the government, the utility of which would at best be questionable. But an objection which will not be thought by any unworthy of attention, is this: a court formed upon such a plan, would either be attended with a heavy expense, or might in practice be subject to a variety of casualties and inconveniences. It must either consist of permanent officers, stationary at the seat of government, and of course entitled to fixed and regular stipends, or of certain officers of the State governments to be called upon whenever an impeachment was actually depending. It will not be easy to imagine any third mode materially different, which could rationally be proposed. As the court, for reasons already given, ought to be numerous, the first scheme will be reprobated by every man who can compare the extent of the public wants with the means of supplying them. The second will be espoused with caution by those who will seriously consider the difficulty of collecting men dispersed over the whole Union; the injury to the innocent, from the procrastinated determination of the charges which might be brought against them; the advantage to the guilty, from the opportunities which delay would afford to intrigue and corruption; and in some cases the detriment to the State, from the prolonged inaction of men whose firm and faithful execution of their duty might have exposed them to the persecution of an intemperate or designing majority in the House of Representatives. Though this latter supposition may seem harsh, and might not be likely often to be verified, yet it ought not to be forgotten that the demon of faction will, at certain seasons, extend his sceptre over all numerous bodies of men.

But though one or the other of the substitutes which have been examined, or some other that might be devised, should be thought preferable to the plan in this respect, reported by the convention, it will not follow that the Constitution ought for this reason to be rejected. If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert. Where is the standard of perfection to be found? Who will undertake to unite the discordant opinions of a whole commuity, in the same judgment of it; and to prevail upon one conceited projector to renounce his infallible criterion for the fallible criterion of his more conceited neighbor? To answer the purpose of the adversaries of the Constitution, they ought to prove, not merely that particular provisions in it are not the best which might have been imagined, but that the plan upon the whole is bad and pernicious.

PUBLIUS

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Formatting for this online version of the Federalist Papers Copyright © 2014 Steve Farrell and The Moral Liberal.

John Marshall – Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

American Minute with Bill Federer

“The power to tax is the power to destroy,” wrote John Marshall, 4th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who was born SEPTEMBER 24, 1755.

No one had a greater impact on Constitutional Law than John Marshall.

Home schooled as a youth, he served with the Culpeper Minutemen at the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

Marshall joined the Continental Army and served as a captain in Virginia Regiment under General George Washington, enduring the freezing winter at Valley Forge.

John Marshall later described George Washington:

“Without making ostentatious professions of religion, he was a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man.”

John Marshall then studied law under Chancellor George Wythe at the College of William and Mary.

He as a U.S. Congressman from Virginia, and became Secretary of State under President John Adams, who then nominated him to the Supreme Court.

John Marshall swore in as Chief Justice on February 4, 1801, and served 34 years.

Every Supreme Court session opens with the invocation:

“God save the United States and this Honorable Court.”

John Marshall helped write over 1,000 decisions, usually favoring the Federal Government, which put him at odds with President Thomas Jefferson who championed State Governments.

John Marshall decided in favor of the Cherokee Indian nation to stay in Georgia against the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which was hurriedly pushed through Congress by Democrat President Andrew Jackson.

Ignoring John Marshall’s decision, the Federal Government removed over 46,000 Native Americans from their homes and relocated them west, leaving vacant 25 million acres open to the expansion of slavery.

Chief Justice John Marshall commented May 9, 1833, on the pamphlet The Relation of Christianity to Civil Government in the United States written by Rev. Jasper Adams, President of the College of Charleston, South Carolina (The Papers of John Marshall, ed. Charles Hobson, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006, p, 278):

“No person, I believe, questions the importance of religion to the
happiness of man even during his existence in this world…

The American population is entirely Christian, and with us, Christianity and religion are identified.

It would be strange, indeed, if with such a people, our institutions did not presuppose Christianity, and did not often refer to it, and express relations with it.”

According to tradition, the Liberty Bell cracked while tolling at John Marshall’s funeral, July 8, 1835.

A hundred years after John Marshall’s death, the Supreme Court Building was completed in 1935, with Herman A. MacNeil’s marble relief above the east portico featuring Moses with two stone tablets.

Inside the Supreme Court chamber are Adolph A. Weinman’s marble friezes depicting lawgivers throughout history, including Moses holding the Ten Commandments, and John Marshall.

A story was originally published in the Winchester Republican newspaper, and recounted in Henry Howe’s Historical Collections of Virginia (Charleston, South Carolina, 1845, p. 275-276; Albert J. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall, Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919, Vol. 4, The Building of the Nation, 1815-1835):

“There is, too, a legend about an astonishing flash of eloquence from Marshall – ‘a streak of vivid lightning’ – at a tavern, on the subject of religion.

The impression said to have been made by Marshall on this occasion was heightened by his appearance when he arrived at the inn.

The shafts of his ancient gig were broken and ‘held together by switches formed from the bark of a hickory sapling’; he was negligently dressed, his knee buckles loosened.

In the tavern a discussion arose among some young men concerning ‘the merits of the Christian religion.’

The debate grew warm and lasted ‘from six o’clock until eleven.’

No one knew Marshall, who sat quietly listening.

Finally one of the youthful combatants turned to him and said:

‘Well, my old gentleman, what think you of these things?’

Marshall responded with a ‘most eloquent and unanswerable appeal.’

He talked for an hour, answering ‘every argument urged against the teachings of Jesus.’

‘In the whole lecture, there was so much simplicity and energy, pathos and sublimity, that not another word was uttered.’

The listeners wondered who the old man could be.

Some thought him a preacher; and great was their surprise when they learned afterwards that he was the Chief Justice of the United States.”

John Marshall’s daughter said her father read Alexander Keith’s “Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Religion derived from the Literal Fulfillment of Prophecy” (Edinburgh: Waugh & Innes, 1826, 2nd ed.).

The Life of John Marshall by Albert J. Beveridge (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919, Vol. IV, p. 70), stated:

“John Marshall’s daughter makes this statement regarding her father’s religious views:

‘He told me that he believed in the truth of the Christian
Revelation…during the last months of his life he read Alexander Keith on Prophecy, where our Saviour’s divinity is incidentally treated, and was convinced by this work, and the fuller investigation to which it led, of the supreme divinity of our Saviour.

He determined to apply to the communion of our Church, objecting to communion in private, because he thought it his duty to make a public confession of the Saviour.’”

Albert J. Beveridge continued in The Life of John Marshall (referencing Bishop William Meade’s Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, 2 Vols., Richmond, 1910, Vol. 2, p. 221-222):

“He attended (Episcopal) services. Bishop William Meade informs us, not only because ‘he was a sincere friend of religion,’ but also because he wished ‘to set an example.’

The Bishop bears this testimony: ‘I can never forget how he would prostrate his tall form before the rude low benches, without backs, at Coolspring Meeting-House (Leeds Parish, near Oakhill, Fauquier County) in the midst of his children and grandchildren and his old neighbors.’

When in Richmond, Marshall attended the Monumental Church where, says Bishop Meade, ‘he was much incommoded by the narrowness of the pews…

Not finding room enough for his whole body within the pew, he used to take his seat nearest the door of the pew, and, throwing it open, let his legs stretch a little into the aisle.’”

John F. Dillon wrote in John Marshall-Life, Character and Judicial Services-As Portrayed in the Centenary and Memorial Addresses and Proceedings Throughout the United States on John Marshall Day, 1901 (Chicago: Callaghan & Company, 1903):

“John Marshall Day, February 4, 1901, was appropriately observed by exercises held in the hall of the House of Representatives, and attended by the President, the members of the Cabinet, the Justices of the Supreme and District courts, the Senate and House of Representatives, and the members of the Bar of the District of
Columbia…

The program, prepared by a Congressional committee acting in conjunction with committees of the American Bar Association and the Bar Association of this District, was characterized by a dignity and simplicity befitting the life of the great Chief Justice…”

After an invocation delivered by John Marshall’s great-grandson, Rev. Dr. William Strother Jones of Trenton, N.J., Chief Justice Fuller made introductory remarks:

“The August Term of the year of our Lord eighteen hundred of the Supreme Court of the United States had adjourned at Philadelphia… However, it was not until Wednesday, February 4th, when John Marshall…took his seat upon the Bench…”

U.S. Attorney General Wayne MacVeagh then stated:

“The centennial anniversary of the entrance by John Marshall into the office of Chief Justice of the United States…

Under his forming hand, instead of becoming a dissoluble confederacy of discordant States, became a great and indissoluble nation, endowed with…the divine purpose for the education of the world…securing to the whole American continent ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people’…

Venerating the Constitution…as ‘a sacred instrument’…we have lived to see…such generous measures of political equality, of social freedom, and of physical comfort and well-being as were never dreamed of on the earth before…

Let us, on this day of all days…acknowledge that nations cannot live by bread alone…

We have heretofore cherished, the Christian ideal of true national greatness; and our fidelity to that ideal, however imperfect it has been, entitled us in some measure to the divine blessing, for having offered an example to the world for more than an entire generation of how a nation could marvelously increase in wealth and strength and all material prosperity while living in peace with all mankind…

We all believe that the true glory of America and her true mission in the new century…is what a great prelate of the Catholic Church has recently declared it to be: to stand fast by Christ and his Gospel; to cultivate not the Moslem virtues of war, of slaughter, of rapine, and of conquest, but the Christian virtues of self-denial and kindness and brotherly love…

Then we may some day hear the benediction: ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me’…

The true mission of nations as of men is to promote righteousness on earth…

and taking abundant care that every human creature beneath her starry flag, of every color and condition, is as secure of liberty, of justice and of peace as in the Republic of God.

In cherishing these aspirations…we are wholly in the spirit of the great Chief Justice; and…so effectually honor his memory.” (Dillon, Vol. 1, p. 7-42)

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray gave an address the same day in Virginia:

“Gentlemen of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and of the City of Richmond: One hundred years ago today, the Supreme Court of the United States, after sitting for a few years in Philadelphia, met for the first time in Washington, the permanent capital of the Nation; and John Marshall, a citizen of Virginia, having his home in Richmond, and a member of this bar, took his seat as Chief Justice of the United States…

Chief Justice Marshall was a steadfast believer in the truth of Christianity as revealed in the Bible. He was brought up in the Episcopal Church; and Bishop Meade, who knew him well, tells us that he was a constant and reverent worshipper in that church, and contributed liberally to its support, although he never became a communicant.

All else that we know of his personal religion is derived from the statements (as handed down by the good bishop) of a daughter of the Chief Justice, who was much with him during the last months of his life.

She said that her father told her he never went to bed without concluding his prayer by repeating the Lord’s Prayer and the verse beginning, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ which his mother had taught him when he was a child;

and that the reason why he had never been a communicant was that it was but recently that he had become fully convinced of the divinity of Christ, and he then ‘determined to apply for admission to the communion of our church objected to commune in private, because he thought it his duty to make a public confession of the Saviour and, while waiting for improved health to enable him to go to the church for that purpose, he grew worse and died, without ever communing.’” (Dillon, Vol. 1, p. 42, 47, 88)

New Hampshire Supreme Court Judge Jeremiah Smith gave an address:

“And this brings us to what is…the great distinguishing feature in Marshall s life; the real secret of his extraordinary success…that is his high personal character…

John Marshall was pre-eminently single minded. His whole life was pervaded by an overpowering sense of duty and by strong religious principle. A firm believer in the Christian religion, his life was in accord with his belief.” (Dillon, Vol. 1, p. 162)

Charles E. Perkins, nephew of Harriet Beecher Stowe and President of the Connecticut Bar Association stated:

“As a man, Marshall appears to have been as near perfection in disposition, habits, and conduct as it is possible for a mortal man to be…He had no vices and, I may almost say, no weaknesses.

In spite of his eminent talents, his high positions, and his great reputation, there was no tinge of conceit…

His charities were constant and great. He bore no malice toward those who offended or injured him.

He was a sincere Christian and believed in and obeyed the commands of the Bible.” (Dillon, Vol. 1, p. 330)

U.S. Rep. William Bourke Cockran addressed the Erie County Bar Association, Buffalo, New York:

“Aside from the establishment of Christianity, the foundation of this republic was the most memorable event in the history of man…

And if the foundation of this government be the most momentous human achievement of all the centuries, then clearly the appointment of John Marshall to the Chief Justiceship of the United States was the first event of the last century no less in the magnitude of its importance than in the order of its occurrence.” (Dillon, Vol. 1, p. 404-405)

U.S. Senator and former Maryland Governor William Pinkney Whyte stated:

“Would you not call a man religious who said the Lord’s Prayer every day? And the prayer he learned at his mother’s knee went down with him to the grave.

He was a constant and liberal contributor to the support of the Episcopal Church.

He never doubted the fact of the Christian revelation, but he was not convinced of the fact of the divinity of Christ till late in life.

Then, after refusing privately to commune, he expressed a desire to do so publicly, and was ready and willing to do so when opportunity should be had. The circumstances of his death only forbade it…

He was never professedly Unitarian, and he had no place in his heart for either an ancient or a modern agnosticism.” (Dillon, Vol. 2, p. 2-3)

U.S. Rep. Horace Binney of Pennsylvania stated that Marshall:

“…was a Christian, believed in the gospel, and practiced its tenets.” (Dillon, Vol. 3, p. 325)

Nathan Sargent, former Commissioner of Customs, wrote in Public Men and Events from 1817 to 1853 (Philadelphia, 1875, Vol. 1, p. 299), that Marshall’s “name has become a household word with the American people implying greatness, purity, honesty, and all the Christian virtues.”

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The Moral Liberal contributing editor, William J. Federer, is the bestselling author of “Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance no Longer Tolerates Religion,” and numerous other books. A frequent radio and television guest, his daily American Minute is broadcast nationally via radio, television, and Internet. Check out all of Bill’s books here.

The Bible of the American Revolution

The Bible of the American Revolution

BY PHYLISS SCHLAFLY

Did you know that Congress once printed Bibles? At the time of the American Revolution, the British government had strict laws about printing Bibles. Only a few printers were licensed to do so, and none of them was in the American colonies, so all Bibles had to be imported from England. The Revolutionary War naturally interrupted trade with England, and there was a severe shortage of Bibles in America.

In 1777, U.S. clergy petitioned the Continental Congress to have Bibles printed in America. In response, Congress passed a resolution to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, and other countries, but in the chaos of the war, they never arrived. So three years later, another resolution to print Bibles in America was introduced in Congress, and printer Robert Aitken petitioned Congress for permission to print them. Congress granted him permission and financial support to print Bibles. His Bibles included an endorsement and recommendation from Congress on the first page.

More American versions of the Bible were printed soon after. In the United States, printers had the freedom to print the Scriptures freely without government approval. That was a radically different situation from what they had been used to under British rule, and it was a great victory for religious freedom.

We now live in a country where prayer and Bible readings in public schools have been outlawed by the Supreme Court for over fifty years. We’re told it’s a violation of the Constitution to display the Ten Commandments in a county courthouse or to have a nativity scene at city hall. But interestingly, the Continental Congress did not consider for a moment whether their appropriation for printing the Bible was an affront to religious freedom. They knew it wasn’t. When we look at changes in America, we should be concerned about our loss of religious liberty.

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The Moral Liberal recommends: Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman’s Crusade (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America)

The SECOND Great Awakening

American Minute with Bill Federer

In his Memorandum Book, Jefferson noted:

“I have subscribed to the building of an Episcopalian church, two hundred dollars; a Presbyterian church, sixty dollars, and a Baptist church, twenty-five.”

The Boston newspaper Christian Watchman, July 14, 1826, printed an unverified story of Jefferson dining at Monticello before the Revolution with Baptist Pastor Andrew Tribble.

According to the story, Jefferson remarked of Baptist church government that he “considered it the only form of pure democracy that exists in the world…It would be the best plan of government for the American colonies.”

Jefferson ‘organized’ a church, as Julian P. Boyd recorded in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, drafting “Subscriptions to Support a Clergyman in Charlottesville,” February 1777, which stated:

“We the subscribers… desirous of encouraging and supporting the Calvinistical Reformed church, and of deriving to ourselves, through the ministry of its teachers, the benefits of Gospel knowledge and religious improvement…by regular education for explaining the holy scriptures…

Approving highly the political conduct of the Revd. Charles Clay, who, early rejecting the tyrant and tyranny of Britain, proved his religion genuine by its harmonies with the liberties of mankind…

and, conforming his public prayers to the spirit and the injured rights of his country, ever addressed the God of battles for victory to our arms…

We expect that the said Charles Clay shall perform divine service and preach a sermon in the town of Charlottesville on every 4th…Sunday or oftener if a regular rotation with the other churches…will admit a more frequent attendance.

And we further mutually agree with each other that we will meet at Charlottesville…every year…and there make a choice by ballot of three wardens to collect our said subscriptions…for the use of our church.”

Jefferson noted in his Memorandum Book, August 15, 1779:

“Pd. Revd. Charles Clay in consideration of parochial services.”

The Calvinistical Reformed Church met in the Albemarle Courthouse for seven years.

It ceased meeting after subscribers Philip Mazzei and John Harvie moved away, and Thomas Jefferson, depressed after the death of his wife and several children, sailed to France in 1783 as an ambassador.

Virginia’s religious revival continued as part of the Second Great Awakening.

Methodist evangelist Jesse Lee, who traveled a circle of cities, reported in 1787 the “circuits that had the greatest revival of religion” included Albermarle county.

Virtually all Baptist and Methodist churches were of mixed races.

In 1788, Rev. John Leland, a friend of Jefferson’s and pastor of Goldmine Baptist Church of Louisa, Virginia, personally baptized over 400.

In Charlottesville, attorney William Wirt wrote in 1795 of the preaching of Presbyterian Rev. James Waddell:

“Every heart in the assembly trembled in unision. His peculiar phrases that force of description that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes…

The effect was inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation.”

James Madison, who was a member of St. Thomas Parish where Rev. James Waddell taught, exclaimed:

“He has spoiled me for all other preaching.”

Madison had Presbyterian preachers speak his Montpelier estate, such as Samuel Stanhope Smith and Nathaniel Irwin, of whom he wrote:

“Praise is in every man’s mouth here for an excellent discourse he this day preached to us.”

Methodist Rev. Lorenzo Dow, nicknamed “Crazy Dow,” traveled over ten thousand miles preaching to over a million people. His autobiography at one time was the 2nd best-selling book in America, exceeded only by the Bible.

Dow held a preaching camp meeting near Jefferson’s home, writing in his Journal that on April 17, 1804:

“I spoke in…Charlottesville near the President’s seat in Albermarle County…to about four thousand people, and one of the President’s daughters (Mary Jefferson Eppes) who was present.”

In the lawless Kentucky frontier, Rev. James McGready and his small church agreed in 1797:

“Therefore, we bind ourselves to observe the third Saturday of each month for one year as a day of fasting and prayer for the conversion of sinners in Logan County and throughout the world.

We also engage to spend one half hour every Saturday evening, beginning at the setting of the sun, and one half hour every Sabbath morning at the rising of the sun in pleading with God to revive His work.”

In June of 1800, 500 members of James McGready’s three congregations gathered at the Red River for a “camp meeting” lasting several days, similar to Scottish “Holy Fairs” where teams of open-air preachers rotated in a continuous stream of sermons.

On the final day:

“‘A mighty effusion of the Spirit’ came on everyone ‘and the floor was soon covered with the slain; their screams for mercy pierced the heavens.’”

In July of 1800, the congregation planned another camp meeting at the Gaspar River. Surpassing their expectations, 8,000 people arrived, some from over 100 miles away:

“The power of God seemed to shake the whole assembly. Towards the close of the sermon, the cries of the distressed arose almost as loud as his voice.

After the congregation was dismissed the solemnity increased, till the greater part of the multitude seemed engaged in the most solemn manner.

No person seemed to wish to go home-hunger and sleep seemed to affect nobody-eternal things were the vast concern.

Here awakening and converting work was to be found in every part of the multitude; and even some things strangely and wonderfully new to me.”

On AUGUST 7, 1801, though Kentucky’s largest city had less than 2,000 people, 25,000 showed up at revival meetings in Cane Ridge, Kentucky.

Arriving from as far away as Ohio, Tennessee, and the Indiana Territory, they heard the preaching of Barton W. Stone and other Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers.

Rev. Moses Hodge described:

“Nothing that imagination can paint, can make a stronger impression upon the mind, than one of those scenes.

Sinners dropping down on every hand, shrieking, groaning, crying for mercy, convulsed; professors praying, agonizing, fainting, falling down in distress, for sinners or in raptures of joy!…

As to the work in general there can be no question but it is of God. The subjects of it, for the most part are deeply wounded for their sins, and can give a clear and rational account of their conversion.”

Prior to the Revolution, the FIRST Great Awakening was led by Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and other preachers who helped start the University of Pennsylvania (1740), Princeton (1746), Brown (1764), Rutgers (1766), and Dartmouth (1770).

The SECOND Great Awakening led to the conversion of a third of Yale’s student body through the efforts of its President Timothy Dwight.

Spreading to other colleges, hundreds of students entered the ministry and pioneered the foreign missions movement.

Young men, along with the first women missionaries, were sent to the American West, and as far away as Burma and Hawaii.

The Second Great Awakening contributed to the founding of the American Bible Society, the Society for the Promotion of Temperance, the Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ and the Seventh-Day Adventists.

Christians helped reform prisons, cared for the handicapped and mentally ill, and worked to abolish slavery.

George Addison Baxter, a skeptical professor at Washington Academy in Virginia, published an account of his travels throughout Kentucky, which was printed in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, March of 1802:

“The power with which this revival has spread, and its influence in moralizing the people, are difficult for you to conceive, and more so for me to describe….

I found Kentucky, to appearance, the most moral place I had ever seen. A profane expression was hardly ever heard. A religious awe seemed to pervade the country.

Never in my life have I seen more genuine marks of that humility which…looks to the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way of acceptance with God…”

Baxter continued:

“I was indeed highly pleased to find that Christ was all and in all in their religion… and it was truly affecting to hear with what agonizing anxiety awakened sinners inquired for Christ, as the only physician who could give them any help.

Those who call these things ‘enthusiasm,’ ought to tell us what they understand by the Spirit of Christianity….

Upon the whole, sir, I think the revival in Kentucky among the most extraordinary that have ever visited the Church of Christ, and all things considered, peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of that country…

Something of an extraordinary nature seemed necessary to arrest the attention of a giddy people, who were ready to conclude that Christianity was a fable, and futurity a dream.

This revival has done it; it has confounded infidelity, awed vice to silence, and brought numbers beyond calculation under serious impressions.”

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The Moral Liberal contributing editor, William J. Federer, is the bestselling author of “Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance no Longer Tolerates Religion,” and numerous other books. A frequent radio and television guest, his daily American Minute is broadcast nationally via radio, television, and Internet. Check out all of Bill’s books here.

48 – February-17 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

 

 

Elder John Leland

The original “BIG CHEESE”

1801 – JEFFERSON WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT ON FEBRUARY 17, 1801 WITH THE SUPPORT OF MOST BAPTISTS WHICH LED TO THE ORIGINAL “BIG CHEESE” – Thomas Jefferson was elected the third President of the United States of America by the House of Representatives on the thirty-sixth ballot on February 17, 1801.  Aaron Burr who finished 2nd, automatically became Vice President. Elder John Leland had come to VA from Mass. to preach the gospel and to work hard for religious liberty.  He was a neighbor of James Madison and Jefferson.  Leland was active in the political arena and also expressed Baptist views of liberty of conscience while rallying Baptists in support of Madison as a delegate to the VA Constitutional Convention and later in his election to the House of Representatives.  Madison had promised the Baptists that if elected, he would introduce a Bill of Rights early in the first session of Congress.  Upon his return to Cheshire, Mass. Leland continued to support Jefferson, believing that America, at last, had a “people’s president” who understood the common man.  To further celebrate this event, one day all of the milk from nine hundred local, loyal Republican cows was collected and brought to Cheshire, where the population gathered to sing hymns, socialize, and make cheese.  They made a gigantic cheese wheel 4 ft, four and one-half inches in diameter, fifteen inches thick, and weighing 1,235 lbs.  Leland and Darius Brown, loaded it up and set off for Washington, D.C. by sleigh, horse and wagon, and sloop on the Hudson River, where they embarked for Baltimore.  Leland took advantage of the crowds that gathered to see the cheese and preached the gospel to them.  Upon arrival Jefferson warmly welcomed the Baptists to the executive mansion.  Leland said that the great cheese “was not made…with a view to gain (us) dignified titles or lucrative offices, but by the personal labor of freeborn farmers, without a single slave to assist, for an elective president of a free people.”  Leland stayed for several days having arrived on Jan. 1, 1802.  On Sunday the 3rd he preached at a religious service that was held weekly at the Capitol during Jefferson’s administration.  Federalist congressman Manessah Cutler, also a minister complained that he had to sit and  listen to such a “poor, ignorant, illiterate cheesemonger” and later wrote that Leland’s sermon was “a farrago bawled with stunning voice, horrid tone, frightful grimaces and extravagant gestures.”  The cheese graced White House parties for many months.  One source said that it lasted until a presidential reception in 1805.  Rumor says that the remainder was dumped in the Potomac.  Thought the Cheshire Cheese is small compared to the modern record of 34,591 lb. cheddar displayed at the N.Y. World’s Fair for the WI Cheese Foundation, it will always remain as the Original Big Cheese that coined the phrase.  It is memorialized in concrete near the post office on Church Street in Cheshire, Mass.  Baptists influenced statesmen to stand against state-established religion, but never did they favor a wall of separation between the state and the influence of biblical principles.
Dr. Greg J. Dixon, from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins Thompson /, pp. 65.

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Blank Paper

“Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to Wilson Nicholas, 1803

Constitution

”On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

President Thomas Jefferson