The Founding Fathers – John Adams

People have differing ideas of how Christians might have been involved in the formation of the US, its laws and customs. Some people believe the US was established with reverence and deference to God and the Bible as the premier precepts, and that He had direct intervention in establishing us as an independent nation. They believe that we are “One nation, under God.” Others state that the Founding Fathers never intended for God to be included in our government. These people keep referring to a supposed ‘separation of church and state,’ and happily demand that any practice of Christianity be relegated to the confines of personal life. They claim that this country was never founded upon the principles of Christianity. Instead, they imagine that our customs, laws and governmental structure were founded on humanism, republicanism, enlightenment ideals or even some vague concept of liberty itself. So then, who is correct? The best way to find the truth about these claims is to examine what principles and thoughts guided the men involved. The Founding Fathers – John Adams is another step in that examination.

John Adams was born October 30, 1735 in Braintree MA. He died July 4, 1826, which just happened to be the 50^th Anniversary of the signing of the American Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. As a descendant of Puritans, Mr. Adams had an upbringing which was focused on the importance of personally employing Biblical principles, attaining education and devotion to public service.

He began his education at 6 years old in a local home school, studying the New England Primer, after which he attended the Braintree Latin School studying mathematics, Latin and logic. He received his upper education at Harvard, and began practicing law after being admitted to the bar.

He wrote several essays under the pen-name “Humphrey Ploughjogger” for Boston newspapers, opposed the Stamp Act and even defended the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre due to his concern for a fair trial. After the successful removal of British troops from the American colonies, Mr. Adams was directly involved in negotiating a peace treaty between the two nations.

It was during the early years of the American rebellion against British rule that he began to espouse the formation of a constitutional republic for the new country, not the formation of a monarchy or democracy. His commitment to republicanism led him to publish Thoughts on Government, and he was so revered in his field that he was elected as a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1779. As a result he became primary author of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, greatly affecting American politics.

Mr. Adams was a signer of both the American Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, was the first Vice President (under George Washington) and was elected as the second President of the US.

With credentials like these we can safely guarantee that he not only knew American government (on both state and federal levels), but that he had a direct influence on their formation. Below are just a few examples of the ideals that Mr. Adams used regarding the principles and laws of American government and American jurisprudence;

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

• Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XIII, p. 292-294. In a letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson on June 28, 1813.

“The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.”

• John Adams, Works, Vol. III, p. 421, diary entry for July 26, 1796.

“Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. . . . What a Eutopia – what a Paradise would this region be!”

• John Adams, Works, Vol. II, pp. 6-7, diary entry for February 22, 1756.

“Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

• Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798, in Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull (New York, 1848), pp 265-6.

“I have thought proper to recommend, and I do hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the 25th day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the sacred duties of religion in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that “righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people;” that He would turn us from our transgressions and turn His displeasure from us; that He would withhold us from unreasonable discontent, from disunion, faction, sedition, and insurrection; that He would preserve our country from the desolating sword; that He would save our cities and towns from a repetition of those awful pestilential visitations under which they have lately suffered so severely, and that the health of our inhabitants generally may be precious in His sight; that He would favor us with fruitful seasons and so bless the labors of the husbandman as that there may be food in abundance for man and beast; that He would prosper our commerce, manufactures, and fisheries, and give success to the people in all their lawful industry and enterprise; that He would smile on our colleges, academies, schools, and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of sound science, morals, and religion; that He would bless all magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, give them the true spirit of their station, make them a terror to evil doers and a praise to them that do well; that He would preside over the councils of the nation at this critical period, enlighten them to a just discernment of the public interest, and save them from mistake, division, and discord; that He would make succeed our preparations for defense and bless our armaments by land and by sea; that He would put an end to the effusion of human blood and the accumulation of human misery among the contending nations of the earth by disposing them to justice, to equity, to benevolence, and to peace; and that he would extend the blessings of knowledge, of true liberty, and of pure and undefiled religion throughout the world.”

• Presidential proclamation of a national day of fasting and prayer (March 6, 1799).

Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that not only did Mr. Adams (rightly) understand the principles of Christianity to be the foundation of this country, but that he endorsed and supported Christians to be actively involved in maintaining the freedoms they enjoyed – freedoms found only through Christ.