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John Adams Might Be Crazy

viapopuli — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:28:55 +0000

As chairman and CEO of The Martin Agency, a world-class advertising agency located in Richmond, Virginia, John Adams should have some idea how the business works. However, he might have fallen off of his rocker.

During a recent lecture, Adams said the integrated marketing communications model is dead. No longer should we assemble the many departments of an organization—sales, public relations, advertising, marketing—to determine how they can work together to communicate an idea. He says that won’t work because “competing interests from various departments can cause infighting, the lack of representation from some disciplines doesn’t serve clients well, and strategic ideas don’t always work across platforms.”

Before we look at Mr. Adam’s alternative to IMC, lets look at his problems with it. First, two of the illustrated problems are organizational. Competing interests that lead to infighting are not so much a problem with IMC as an internal agency issue. If you can’t get your sales staff to get behind a brand awareness campaign, for example, you need to teach your sales staff the value different departments bring to the table. A lack of representation also appears to be an internal planning problem. Is your public relations representative not contributing? Is the ad department under staffed? What is leading to departmental representation? That is not an illness; it is a symptom.

Second, Adams says, “strategic ideas don’t always work across platforms.” While this is true in some instances, I don’t think it’s a reason to abandon the principles of IMC. Maybe your pitch does not have a PR angle. Sure, the PR department still has to come up with something, but should they waste their time—and the time of others—developing a pitch where one does not really exist. I guess that’s a discussion for another post. I understand, and completely agree, that some ideas do not apply to each marketing platform. Not all of my kids are good at math, but I’m not going to kick the entire family to the curb.

What Adams proposes is a “unified approach.” The example he gives is how The Martin Agency recently brought its designers and producers together into one department rather than having them separated into different accounts. He adds that the “very nature of storytelling has changed” and that advertisers can no longer get by with only designing an image and not show the benefits to the consumer, that they have to start a conversation with consumers. He expects advertisers to create a multi-layered storyline that develops over time. Naturally, he used the GEICO commercials (created by his own agency) as an example. “Marketing is about telling the stories of products and services,” says Adams.

I am perplexed why Adams thinks successful marketers have stopped telling stories and how anyone can successfully market products and services without extolling their benefits to consumers. Why, also, would moving away from integrated marketing communications improve an agencies ability to tell complex stories? John Adams has decades more experience than I do, so I should not pretend to know more about the industry than he does. But, I will.

Adam’s “unified approach” sounds a lot like traditional brainstorming. Also, storytelling has changed for advertisers, but only because the audience has become both a part of the story and one of the storytellers. Free flowing information between producers and consumers through new media like Twitter, blogs, apps, text messages, and video opens the doors to creative agencies like The Martin Agency. I think the core of IMC—integration—will allow marketers to fully execute complex campaigns that may or may not involve cavemen and geckos.

So is John Adams crazy? Should the marketing industry abandon IMC? The answer to both is no. What the future holds is a new IMC paradigm—an evolved IMC—that will better tell better stories through new media to the benefit of producers and consumers alike.

In their own words: Quotes from the Founding generation, Part II

1776blog — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:23:33 +0000

Quotes from the Founding generation, Part II: Guns, Guns, Guns

George Mason-

“To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

Thomas Jefferson-

(1) ”Those who hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those who do not.”

(2) ”No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

Richard Henry Lee- (first to formally propose independence from Great Britain, signer of Declaration of Independence)

“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”

Patrick Henry-

“Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?”

George Washington-

“Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”

Thomas Payne-

“Arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order in the world as well as property.”

Alexander Hamilton-

“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”

Category 5 News

infoatperthrelocation — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:57:17 +0000

At the meeting with David Wilden at Australia House today, we were told as follows:

All the applications in hand from people in Categories 1 – 4 as listed in the FAQ of 23rd September 2009 are now under control.

DIAC estimate that there are about 3,500 applications in Category 5 – that is, State sponsored but the main applicant’s occupation is not on the CSL. Mr Wilden has been told that DIAC are now in a position to make a start on processing the Cat 5 applications.

Mr Wilden said as follows:

Roughly 3,500 is the number of actual visa applications, not the number of people involved. (I checked this with him specifically and he was definite about it.)
They will start to process the Cat 5s according to the dates when the visa applications were lodged and they will deal with the oldest applications first.
They will make no distinctions between the different visa subclasses – first come, first served means what it implies in a situation where the occupation is not on the CSL but the applicant does have State sponsorship.
There is no foundation to the rumour that tradies may be excluded from Cat 5 processing – the tradies are to be treated identically to people whose occupations are in ASCO Groups 1-3.

Mr Wilden said that we have had him up late at night and out of bed before the birds in order to phone his colleagues in Australia to discover exactly what the plans are for the Category 5s because he had seen from Poms in Oz that everyone is particularly worried about this question in particular.

Mr WIlden stressed that he cannot say how long it will take to clear the backlog of about 3,500 Cat 5 applications. As & when they receive further applications from people with greater claim to priority, the applications with greater priority will be dealt with first.

The Famous Five were all PiO members (DanB1, Floater, Gollywobbler, RonnieRocket and Watneyni to put us in alphabetical order.) We were all sitting round the same table with Mr Wilden and we all heard him say exactly the same things. (Needless to say we repaired to a London hostelry afterwards to compare notes – thanks very much indeed to Watneyni for very kindly buying a round of drinks for us all.)

We were joined unexpectedly by a very helpful young man called Andrew. He has worked at the ASPC for a while but he is now in the UK, working with John Adams RMA at Immigration2Oz.com Andrew is not a PiO member [yet] but I am trying to encourage him/twist his arm! Andrew was involved with this part of the discussion so he heard Mr Wilden as well.

That they can’t say how long it will take to clear the 3,500 or so Cat 5 applications is reasonable enough. Mr Wilden promised to find out how many of the 108,100 skilled PR & Provisional visas for 2009/10 have been granted as at 30th November 2009 and he said he will let us know as soon as he knows. Once we have that figure it will probably be possible to start making reasonably sensible guesses.

After the meeting the Famous Five agreed that this information is probably the most significant piece of info from today and that we would get it onto the forum with all possible speed, in its own thread to make it stand out.

Cheers

Gill

Source : http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/migration-issues/73648-category-5-news.html

In their own words: Quotes from the Founding generation Part I

1776blog — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:14:07 +0000

Benjamin Franklin-
When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.

John Adams-
The happiness of society is the end of government.

George Washington-
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

Thomas Jefferson-
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.

Alexander Hamilton-
If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify. (Federalist 33)

Samuel Adams-
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

Vattel's Law of Nations and the Founding Fathers

nobarack08 — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:32:21 +0000

Vattel was the key in the United States Constitution in determining the Article 2 Natural Born Citizen clause. Here is a list of the references used by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington in regards to Vattel’s Law of Nations. This should dispel any notion that the Founding Fathers did not use the Law of Nations as their guide.

Vattel – John Adams

http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=GEWN-search-1&mode=TOC

From Edmund Randolph, 6 May 1793

… refusal of him may bring war upon the U.S., because they cannot, without very particular reasons decline his admission—(See Vattel book. 4. section 65) That the expulsion of the prince is not one of those particular reasons will appear …

Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on a Cabinet Meeting, 6 May 1793

… valid. E.R. declared himself of the same opinion, but on H’s undertaking to present to him the authority in Vattel (which we had not present) & to prove to him that, if the authority was admitted, the treaty might …

Memorandum from Henry Knox, 16 May 1793

… against our sovereignty even to such a degree as to justify a declaration of War unless satisfactory reparation be made—Vattel is explicit upon this subject he says—in Book 3. Chapter 2d Section 15. “As the right of levying soldiers …

From John Jay, 28 August 1790

… comprized within two Classes vizt cases of urgent necessity, and cases of convenience—The present case belongs to the latter. Vattel who well understood the Subject, says in the 7th chapter of his 3d Book— That an innocent Passage is …

To the Cabinet, 3 August 1793

… United States signed with France in 1778, see Miller, Treaties, 3–44. An authority on international law was Emmerich de Vattel’s three-volume work Le Droit des gens: ou, Principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite & aux affaires …

To Thomas Jefferson, 4 August 1793

… had with France, Great Britain, and other nations, see Miller, Treaties, 3–244. The other reference is to Emmerich de Vattel’s three-volume work The Law of Nations; or Principles of the Law of Nature: Applied to the Conduct and to …

To Robert Cary & Company, 6 October 1773

… the Nature and Immutability of Truth; Thomas Reid, Inquiry into the Human Mind; Adam Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy; Vattel, Laws of Nations; Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli au Paces; George Turnbull, Principles of Moral Philosophy; David Fordyce, Elements …

Enclosure Questions for the Supreme Court, 18 July 1793

… all with France, see Miller, Treaties, 3–47, 228–44. This is probably a reference to principles contained in Emmerich de Vattel’s three-volume work, The Law of Nations; or the Principles of the Law of Nature: Applied to the conduct and …

Enclosure: Answers to Questions proposed by the President of the United States to the Secretary of the Treasury., 15 September 1790

… Law of War and Peace through Barbeyrac’s work, cited in n.3 above (see Syrett, Hamilton Papers 7:39, n.5). For Vattel’s Law of Nations, see John Jay to GW, 28 Aug. 1790, n.2. Hamilton’s footnote, “Puffendorfs Law of Nature & …

Memorandum from Alexander Hamilton, 15 May 1793

… 26:197–99; see also JPP, 156–57, 159. Throughout the debates over U.S. neutrality policy, cabinet members referred to Emmerich de Vattel’s The Law of Nations, first published in French in 1758 and in English in 1760. Although the Treaty of …

http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=ADMS-search-1&mode=TOC

12th.

… with the other volumes. In the afternoon I took up Vattels’ law of nature and of nations. Emmerich de Vattel, Le droit des gens; ou, principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations …

15th.

15th. Dined with Townsend and Thomson at Mr. Parsons’s. I finished this day the first volume of Vattel. The first book treats of the duties of a nation with respect to itself: the second of its obligations …

22d.

22d. This forenoon I finish’d Vattel. The third book treats of War, and the fourth of Peace; much in the same manner as he treats …

I. Reply of the House to Hutchinson’s First Message, 26 January 1773

… June 1680, Henings Statutes, 2:466–469. In his address of 6 Jan., Hutchinson had quoted this passage from Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations, or, Principles of the Law of Nature, applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations …

III. Reply of the House to Hutchinson’s Second Message, 2 March 1773

… Mass., Province Laws, 3:118. For the background of this legislation, see Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, ed. Mayo, 2:298–300. That is, Vattel. See No. I, note 12, above. These passages are taken from the second of John Locke’s Two Treatises of …

From James Lovell, 1 January 1778

… been greatly wanted upon a most important transaction. We have had a call for your stores of Grotius Puffendorf Vattel &c. &c. &c. to support reason and commonsense or to destroy both, just as your Honour and Da– and …

Editorial Note

… absolute. In a passage strongly reminiscent of his writs of assistance argument, Otis cited the Swiss publicist Emmerich de Vattel, as well as Bonham’s Case and other common law precedents, for the proposition that Parliament could not make a …

To Richard Henry Lee, 15 March 1780

… I, f. 211–217; Morison, John Paul Jones, p. 355– 356). In support of his position Franklin cited Emmerich de Vattel’s The Law of Nations, or Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations …

To the President of Congress, No. 40, 10 April 1780

… on the law of nations, but it did no more than explicitly state what was already implied (Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations, or Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations …

Jean Henri David Uhl to John Adams: A Translation, 1 July 1782

… it was contraband, was free or not subject to seizure wherever found, even on an enemy ship (Emerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations or the Principals of Natural Law, bk. 3, ch. 7, § 115–116). Thus when a …

Editorial Note

… a specialized approach to the questions of prize: R. Lee, Treatise of Captures in War (London, 1759); Emmerich de Vattel, Law of Nations (London, 1760). See Minutes, 13 Sept. 1783, DNA Microcopy 162, Case 30. No authorities appear in …

Vattel – Thomas Jefferson

http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=TSJN-search-1&mode=TOC&#match

To George Hammond, 29 May 1792

… choses dont le Traité ne dit rien, doivent demeurer dans l’etat où elles se trouvent lors de sa conclusion. Vattel. L. 4. §. 21. ‘De quibus nihil dictum, ea manerit quo sunt loco,’ Wolf. 1222. No alterations then are …

Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Opinion on the Treaties with France

… But Randolph wavered when Hamilton offered to produce a citation from that formidable authority on international law, Emmerich de Vattel’s Le Droit des Gens (1758), in support of his position that a treaty might under certain circumstances be suspended …

I. Notes on Washington’s Questions on Neutrality and the Alliance with France, [before 28 April 1793]

… free goods et econtre. free commerce to places not besieged. certificate of officer of convoy prevents searches. contraband defined. Vattel. 2. 157. the validity of treaties / 158. lezion does not annul them. / 159. duties of nations in …

II. Notes for Opinion on the Treaty of Alliance with France, [before 28 April 1793]

… self-libern without just cause or compensn gives cause of war to France. Examine Authorities.—how far they weigh.—danger of understg. Vattel witht restrn. Grotius—Puff.—Wolf— Vattel Vattel . 2. 160. 158. <159.> 163. 219. 220. <233.> [Lengthwise in the ...

IV. Opinion on the Treaties with France, 28 April 1793

... Certainly not when merely useless or disagreeable, as seems to be said in an authority which has been quoted. Vattel. 2.197. And tho he may under certain degrees of danger, yet the danger must be imminent, and the degree ...

List of Books Sold to James Monroe, [10 May 1784]

… Oeuvres de Mably. 4.v. 1. 1. / Entretiens de Phocion 4. / Recherches sur les Americains. 3.v. 16. / Vattel 1. 16. / Epoques de la nature 2. v. 11. / Maniere de jouer aux echecs 6. / Oeuvres …

From Edmund Randolph, with a Memorandum by Jefferson, 9 February 1781

… a Memorandum by Jefferson Sir February 9. 1781. As your excellency and the council probably have not access to Vattel, on whose doctrines this hasty answer is founded, I shall inclose the paragraph from his work, which treats of …

Report on Negotiations with Spain, 18 March 1792

… and without having declared any: but on the contrary, conducting herself in other respects as a friend and associate. Vattel. L. 3. 122. It is an established principle that Conquest gives only an inchoate right, which does not become …

To James Madison, 28 April 1793

… have been seriously proposed to declare our treaties with France void on the authority of an ill-understood scrap in Vattel 2.§.197. [‘toutefois si ce changement &c—gouvernement’] and that it should be necessary to discuss it?—Cases are now arising which …

From Edmund Randolph, 9 February 1781

… made by the unarmed countrymen, I am inclined to think, that I was inaccurate. As well as I recollect, Vattel was said to be against their claim; but that daily usage was in favor of it. So far perhaps …

http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=TSJN-search-2&mode=TOC&#match

To Thomas Newton, Jr., 8 September 1791

… 202–3). In laying down general principles only, TJ had the support of three wellknown authorities—Abraham de Wicquefort, Emmerich de Vattel, and Wyndham Beawes—among whom only Vattel argued that consuls “must be accorded, to a certain extent, the …

II. Arguments by James Wilson and William Samuel Johnson before the Court of Commissioners, [14–23 December 1782]

… made to the Dutch possessions. We must discover the thoughts of those who make Contracts 2 Blacstone 295. 2 Vattel §270. 2 Hutchinson history Massa. 387. Interpretation must be rational 2 Rutherford—chapter Interpretation. 1 Blacstone 59. 2 Bacon abrid. …

From Thomas Pinckney, 27 August 1793

… Court of Admiralty’s dismissal of Wilson’s suit against the Centurion’s captain was presumably based on the principle expressed by Vattel that the captain had acted in ignorance of the cessation of hostilities, even though Vattel maintained that …

Alexander Hamilton’s Notes on Jefferson’s Letter to George Hammond, with Jefferson’s Response, [20–27 May 1792]

… have a knowledge of the transaction from it’s first embryon to it’s perfection. They are the ‘parties contractantes’ of Vattel and the ‘paciscentes’ of Wolf cited §. 48. Tho’ they do not transact the business in person, but by …

Edmund Randolph’s Opinion on the Grange, 14 May 1793

… a country in order to settle there, it possesses every thing included in it, as lands, lakes, rivers” &c. Vattel. b.1.c.22. §.266. To this list might be added Bynkershoek and Selden. But the dissertation of the former de dominio …

To Edmond Charles Genet, 17 June 1793

… what that law and usage is. Let us appeal to enlightened and disinterested Judges. None is more so than Vattel. He says L. 3. §. 104. “Tant qu’un peuple neutre veut jouïr surement de cet état, il doit montrer …

To Edmond Charles Genet, [ca. 16 July 1793]

… unfortunate in your estimation. You are pleased to consider us as bringing forward diplomatic subleties, and the aphorisms of Vattel, to justify infractions of positive treaties. I shall agree with you that reason is the only rightful umpire between …

XII. Opinion of the Chief Justice, 28 August 1790

… within two Classes vizt. cases of urgent necessity, and Cases of Convenience. The present case belongs to the latter. Vattel, who well understood the subject, says in the 7th: chapter of his 3d. Book: That an innocent Passage is …

XV. Opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury, 15 September 1790

… Peace Book II Chap II § xiii No. 1.2.3.4. Book III Chap: VII § 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. Vattel Book III Chap VII Section 127. France has made us one loan since the peace. MS (DLC: Washington Papers). …

Notes on Washington’s Questions on Neutrality and the Alliance with France, [6 May 1793]

… valid. E.R. declared himself of the same opinion, but on H’s undertaking to present to him the authority in Vattel (which we had not present) and to prove to him that, if the authority was admitted, the treaty might …

http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=TSJN-search-3&mode=TOC&#match

From James Madison, 8 May 1793

… at the time have been put on them. The attempt to shuffle off the Treaty altogether by quibbling on Vattel is equally contemptible for the meanness and folly of it. If a change of Government is an absolution from …

To William G. Munford, 27 February 1799

… in the catalogue [you sent me] as could be found here. these are Stewart’s philosophy of the human mind. Vattel’s law of nations. Smith’s wealth of nations. Nicholson’s philosophy {}to these I have added Chipman’s sketches on government Condorcet’s …

Notes on John Jay’s Mission to Great Britain, [1797 or after]

… He says also that in conformity to what was mentioned by Mr. Jay he has used the words of Vattel. As to the article about impressment he says ‘he sees no reason whatever to object to this article.’ / …

To James Madison, 3 August 1793

… vulnerable points, well struck, stab the party vitally.—3. lights from the law of nations on the constructions of treaties. Vattel has been most generally the guide, Bynkershoeck often quoted, Wolf sometimes. 4. no call was made by any power …

IV. Thomas Jefferson to Gouverneur Morris, 16 August 1793

… law of nations, founded on the general sense and usage of mankind, we have produced proofs, from theJune 17. Vattel L.3.§.104. most enlightened and approved writers on the subject, that a neutral nation must, in all things relating to …

To Ferdinando Fairfax, 25 April 1794

… to discuss the opinions of Home and Young, than my friend Genet did the worm-eaten aphorisms of Grotius and Vattel. In the mean time I have the honor to be with sentiments of great esteem Dear Sir your most …

Enclosure II: Considerations on a Convention with Spain, 22 March 1792

… One writer extends the exception to atrocious criminals, too imminently dangerous to Society. Namely to Pirates, Murderers, and Incendiaries. Vattel. L. V. § 233. The punishment of Piracy, being provided for by our law, need not be so by …

From Edmund Randolph, 30 January 1784

… be convinced of Hancock’s guilt before they could deliver him up. This scruple originated from the 76th. section of Vattel’s 2d. book. But the quotation of a practice in Switzerland which deprives the canton, within whose reach an offender …

To John Garland Jefferson, 11 June 1790

… Spirit of laws. / Blackstone. / Virginia laws. Smith’s wealth of nations. / Beccaria. / Kaim’s moral essays. / Vattel’s law of nations / Should there be any little intervals in the day not otherwise occupied fill them up …

From Thomas Pinckney, 5 July 1793

… was justifiable when there was a hope of reducing an enemy by famine (for a translation, see Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations, or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations …

http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=TSJN-search-4&mode=TOC&#match

Course of Reading for William G. Munford, [5 December 1798]

… Practice in Chancery / Wythe’s reports. Schomberg’s hist. of [Civ. 1.] / Washington’s reports. Molloy de Jure [Mar.] / Vattel. / [Fine Arts] from [XII.] to II. Moral Philosophy [from?] […]& [night?] / Lowthe’s grammar Condorcet’s Progress of the …

A Course of Reading for Joseph C. Cabell, September 1800

… human life. 12mo. Gregory’s legacy. 12mo. Gregory’s comparative view. 12 mo. Ld. Bacon’s essays. 12 mo. L. of nations. Vattel. Droit des gens. 4to. Droit des gens moderne par martens. 2 v. {12mo. Religion. Paley’s evidences. 8vo. Middleton’s Miscelli …

From James Madison, 9 January 1785

… contended that such surrenders were unknown to the law of nations, and were interdicted by our declaration of Rights. Vattel however is express as to the case of Robbers, murderers and incendiaries. Grotius quotes various instances in which great …

To John Jay, 21 June 1787

… sang répandus pour venger l’injure faite a quelqu’un de ces hommes revêtus d’un ministere national.” Grotius, Bodin, Montesquieu, and Vattel were appealed to in support of the view that the ambassador, representing his sovereign in a foreign state, must …

To Edmond Charles Genet, [15–22 November 1793]

… are worm-eaten, or hired. It will be acknoleged that you have never troubled us with quotations from Grot. Puff. Vattel or any other authority antient or recent. Had you endeavored to learn from these respected authors what the rest …

Vattel – George Washington

http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=GEWN-search-1&mode=TOC&#match

From Edmund Randolph, 6 May 1793

Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on a Cabinet Meeting, 6 May 1793

Memorandum from Henry Knox, 16 May 1793

From John Jay, 28 August 1790

To the Cabinet, 3 August 1793

To Thomas Jefferson, 4 August 1793

To Robert Cary & Company, 6 October 1773

Enclosure Questions for the Supreme Court, 18 July 1793

Enclosure: Answers to Questions proposed by the President of the United States to the Secretary of the Treasury., 15 September 1790

Memorandum from Alexander Hamilton, 15 May 1793

Vattel – Ratification

http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=RNCN-search-1&mode=TOC

Convention Debates

… a confederation of states. (8) Sovereignty is in the states and not in the people in its exercise. (9) Vattel’s description of sovereignty—it belonged originally to the body of the society (Vat. page 9. of the Sovereign). (10) …

Convention Debates, A.M.

… marginal notes] Sovereignty Vat. p. 5. s. 2 Lock, p. 2, s. 149, 227. Bl. 245. 161. 162. Confederacy, Vattel p. 11. s. 10 Mont. b. 9. c. 1. A general inconsistency between this reasoning and that against the …

Convention Debates, A.M.

… 2. [Montesquieu, I, 11–18.] “The People, in whom the Supreme Power resides.” (51) Vat. b. 1. s. 1. 2. [Vattel, 15–16.] “Sovereignty.” (52) The sovereignty is essentially in the people; but is vested in a senate or a monarch. …

Convention Debates, A.M.

… closed his arguments in opposition to the proposed federal system. [Dallas’ Debates, Pennsylvania Herald, 15 December] Findley: Sovereignty. Vat. [Vattel] p. 9. 19. Locke, on Gov. [II] c. 13 [chapter XIII]. There is but one supreme power, viz., the …

Symbols

… Ithaca, N.Y., 1930–1971). Thorpe Francis N. Thorpe, ed., The Federal and State Constitutions … (7 vols., Washington, D.C., 1909). Vattel Emerich de Vattel , The Law of Nations … (Dublin, 1792). Cross-references CC Commentaries on the Constitution: Public …

George Clinton’s Remarks Against Ratifying the Constitution, 11 July 1788

… persons, having a will of their own and equal rights—that these rights are freedom, sovereignty, and independence. The celebrated Vattel treating on this subject, observes “that power or weakness does not in this respect produce any difference. A dwarf …

New Movement Survey #1

riverdaughter — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:58:34 +0000

The time is right for a new movement. The American middle class is sick and tired of getting trampled by the well connected who have our government by the balls. But if we are going to get this baby off the ground, we’re going to have to do this right. Successful movements have certain things in common. Timing is important. But so is critical mass, messaging, leadership, discipline. To start off our exploration of movements that worked, I want to start with The Protestant Reformation and the American Revolution. Those of you who haven’t seen HBO’s fantastic series John Adams should rent it ASAP. The first several episodes are the important ones. For those of you not familiar with the Reformation, check out this excellent introduction from PBS’ Empires based on the life of Martin Luther: Driven to Defiance and Reluctant Revolutionary.

Now, before we get started, I would like to conduct a survey. This is not the first time we have tried to get our act together and we are not the only ones trying to do it. Violet Socks is testing the waters as well. But we continue to face resistance, from ourselves mainly, to actually doing something. So, this survey is intended to help us figure out what we are doing wrong.

Notes and my humble opinion:

Those of you who are hankering for a National Womens Party should give it up. It’s DOA. If you go that route, you will end up marginalizing yourselves and leave the rest of us without your critical mass. Seriously. I don’t want to be a part of a movement where we are already starting down the path to splitting ourselves up. You can get everything you want from a new entity without making yourselves irrelevant from inception. Sorry to be so harsh. I could be harsher. I am a feminist interested in equality. Sentimental feminism bores me to fricking tears. Don’t test my patience. Feel free to disagree with me but before you do, first do a thought experiment and carry out your proposal to its logical conclusion.
Yes, tea partiers are well intentioned but crazy. If you are a tea partier, I share your frustration with the way things are. But the tea party movement was started by Republican operatives and, I’m sorry, but Republicans have lost all semblance of credibility. They are bent on destruction of our government and have been successful at destroying it since Ronald Reagan got his mitts on it. Rush Limbaugh is an evil man. Glenn Beck is both evil and stupid. If you can’t see what is really going on in the tea party movement, please sit this one out on our threads.
Think *VERY* carefully about how you want to construct your message. I have seen what happens when a bunch of Conflucians or Reclusiveleftists or other left of centerists get together in a blog and decide to brainstorm. It isn’t pretty. Here is a taste of what *has* been successful:

Think about how to spread the message once we have one. Blogging isn’t the answer. Most people don’t read blogs. Also, the news media isn’t going to cover us until we are too obvious to ignore anymore. THIS is the place to be creative.

Ok, GO!

digg!!! tweet!!! share!!!

International Tours and Socials Warnings and Information

bobbyblackstone — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:38:10 +0000

A confidence trick exploits everything from greed to physical emotions. Lack of experience and knowledge in a certain field or subject creates an additional level of one’s inability to fully understand how a scammer takes advantage of any situation. Many men and women do find each other from around the world. Unfortunately, social events in foreign countries where women are often forced and paid to meet men from first world nations are nothing more than another day at the office for the women. Social events in foreign countries also put at risk a man’s physical and monetary safety. Girls at these events look at foreigners as a meal ticket for money and a way out of her country and nothing more. Meeting real women at any social event in a foreign land has a ninety nine percent failure rate. If a representative from any company offering social tours tells you any different, he is lying.

The other critical element to the success of this type of scam is the placement of shills inside each group of men who attend Social Tours and Events. A Shill is a person who appears to have joined the tour for the same reason a man has paid thousands for, but the Shill is actually paid the be there. His all expense trip is paid for by the tour company to monitor the behavior of the men on the tour. The shill is also paid commissions and bonuses to encourage men to come back for more. He is also responsible for making a man believe that there is something legitimate to all of the activities and events that take place. Most of these men have been on many tours and will attempt to create strong friendships with the men while on the tour and afterwards. This is done to market products and services at web sites for membership fees and gifts sent to ladies in the future and to validate the scammers activity.

Just as there is no typical profile for swindlers, neither is there one for their victims. Virtually anyone can fall prey to fraudulent crimes. … Certainly victims of high-yield investment frauds may possess a level of greed which exceeds their caution as well as a willingness to believe what they want to believe. However, not all fraud victims are greedy, risk-taking, self-deceptive individuals looking to make a quick dollar. Nor are all fraud victims naive, uneducated, or elderly.

Government authorities in many countries including Canada, The United States and Great Britain have had many International Dating Web sites, Marriage Agencies in foreign countries and companies offering Overseas Social Tours under investigation for some time. If you or someone you know has been the victim of this type of crime, please contact the authorities listed below.

If you are planning to go on a Social Event in a foreign country offered by any web site or tour company, protect yourself by alerting authorities of scamming activity. Ask all women in attendance at any social if they work for the tour company or at any web site or marriage agency. Ask all tour participants to show you his or her international passport to determine how often that individual has travelled to a foreign country. If a participant in your group has travelled to many countries, be aware that they could be part of the scheme. Be aware of promises made in writing and make audio recordings of all conversations with company officials. Keep strict records and documents pertaining to all monies paid before, during and after the social event.

Report all suspicious activity to the authorities below.

Complaint Referral Form

Internet Crime Complaint Center

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).

IC3’s mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. The IC3 gives the victims of cyber crime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, local and international level, IC3 provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet related crimes. read more >>

Prior to filing a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), please read the following information regarding terms and conditions. Should you have additional questions prior to filing your complaint, view FAQ for more information on inquiries such as:

What details will I be asked to include in my complaint?
What happens after I file a complaint?
How are complaints resolved?
Should I retain evidence related to my complaint?

The information I’ve provided on this form is correct to the best of my knowledge. I understand that providing false information could make me subject to fine, imprisonment, or both. (Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1001)

The IC3 is co-sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). Complaints filed via this website are processed and may be referred to federal, state, local or international law enforcement or regulatory agencies for possible investigation. I understand any investigation opened on any complaint I file on this website is initiated at the discretion of the law enforcement and/or regulatory agency receiving the complaint information.

Filing a complaint with IC3 in no way serves as notification to my credit card company that I am disputing unauthorized charges placed on my card or that my credit card number may have been compromised. I should contact my credit card company directly to notify them of my specific concerns.

Go to http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx to learn more about how to file a complaint with authorities.

International Social Tours and Matchmaking

bobbyblackstone — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:25:10 +0000

A confidence trick or confidence game (also known as bunko, con, flim flam, gaffle, grit, hustle, scam or scamming, scheme, or swindle) is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. The victim is known as the mark and his accomplices are known as shills. Much of the time, promises made and paid for are never written down in formal documents, but are made verbally so there is no way to later confirm what was actually said.

In the International Social Tour and Matchmaking business, the hustler and main confidence man is also known as the pitch man. He or she is the person who represents the company and is able to convince a man that there is something real about his or her services and makes unlimited promises and possibilities to meet an honest sincere mate searching for the same. The claim is that, if you pay a lot of money to this confidence man, he will somehow introduce you to Mrs Right. He will often act like he knows hundreds of women who want to meet you. He will claim that he has the ability to introduce you to women who are desperate to leave her country and will fall in love with the first man she sees. He will claim that there are thousands of women who want to leave poor and poverty stricken countries due to poor economic conditions. He may even use his own life history from years ago to describe what is happening in today’s world. Unfortunately, all of the statements made, are created to make you believe what he is trying to peddle is true and honest when the real truth is a million miles away from reality.

Report all suspicious activity to the authorities below.

Complaint Referral Form

Internet Crime Complaint Center

What details will I be asked to include in my complaint?
What happens after I file a complaint?
How are complaints resolved?
Should I retain evidence related to my complaint?

Go to http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx to learn more about how to file a complaint with authorities.

Love Me Romance Tour Questions Answered

bobbyblackstone — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:14:57 +0000

While there are many types of scamming, in the area of international dating, a mans emotions and the promise for love and happiness forever, are key to this type of scam. Marriage Agencies and International Dating web sites are nothing but money machines. They all make money by impersonating pretty faces through so-called Marriage Agencies, sending letter after letter to unsuspecting lonely men, paying girls to chat while making endless promises, promoting tours and socials in foreign countries and much, much more.

Report all suspicious activity to the authorities below.

Complaint Referral Form

Internet Crime Complaint Center

What details will I be asked to include in my complaint?
What happens after I file a complaint?
How are complaints resolved?
Should I retain evidence related to my complaint?

Go to http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx to learn more about how to file a complaint with authorities.

Russian Foreign Affair Romance Social Tour Complaints

bobbyblackstone — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:15:16 +0000

All men communicating with a woman’s profile online from any country through any website or marriage agency, need to be aware of the biggest scamming techniques now on the Internet. The scope of outright theft by major international web site owners make men like Bernard Lawrence Madoff, Kevin Trudeau, and Barry Minkow look like school boys compared to John Adams and many others. Many of these scams have been on the Internet for years without solid proof to shut them down or without legal protection for the consumers who have been bilked out of millions. Many scamming operations are still alive and well, doing what these dishonest people do everyday to thousands of men and women around the world, stealing millions from unsuspecting victims by people who claim to be honest.

Report all suspicious activity to the authorities below.

Complaint Referral Form

Internet Crime Complaint Center

What details will I be asked to include in my complaint?
What happens after I file a complaint?
How are complaints resolved?
Should I retain evidence related to my complaint?

Go to http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx to learn more about how to file a complaint with authorities.

Theme From John Adams

Donald R. McClarey — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:03:46 +0000

Something for the weekend. The superb intro to the John Adams miniseries, a model of how history should be dramatized.

americanrebellion — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:39:22 +0000

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.

~ John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

americanrebellion — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:19:40 +0000

Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.

~ John Adams

Thanksgiving Proclamations

Diane — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:38:55 +0000

"Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks..."

Second Corinthians 9:11-12 tells us that God gives riches that we may praise Him. We are also given riches to distribute through our generosity. Christians are supposed to be kind, meek, loving, caring, and forgiving. We are given much to spread these Christian attributes both materially and spiritually. We are enriched so that we may apply our riches to His glory, and the good of man. We are given much so we can care for many. Those who have plenty may exercise all bountifulness. This is primarily for the saints, for other believers in Christ, but we are to share this abundance with all mankind. We are given abundance to administrate, to minister, to give in service to others who are without. We, given much, are required in turn to distribute that blessing by giving as much as we can out of our abundance.

What I would like to consider today is the thankfulness of our nation. We have given much and there is too much for us to recount here. There are few nations in the world – if any – that give as much as the United States. Our people gave over $314 billion in 2007. We give more than money for the sake of freedom and our nation as well as our people every day.

Many historians today claim our forefathers were Deists at best, and secularists more generally. Yet, in their own handwriting, they speak frequently of God, of Jesus and of the providential power of God and His governance of mankind on a minute level. The Deist does not believe God is intimately involved with His creation. They believe He created, but deny His specific involvement. A Deist equally denies the authority of the scriptures. Our founding fathers leaned upon, quoted from, referenced and paraphrased the scriptures repeatedly throughout the Revolutionary War in full dependency upon God for deliverance. They repeatedly called for the people of the United States of America to “confess and deplore our many sins” and “beseeching him to forgive our iniquities, to remove our present calamities, to avert those desolating judgments, with which we are threatened.” This group of congressional leaders regularly sought God in prayer, and called for this nationally, to forgive their sins.

Our nation sought freedom from tyranny based upon Psalm 35. We understand this from the writings of John Adams to Abigail, his wife, in a letter dated September 16, 1774. This from a supposed Unitarian with Deist training, who spoke in his diary of witnessing of Christ to a Frenchman named Wuibert on May 22, 1779 as recorded in Adams’ own hand. He also noted, just before this, that he desired our ship’s men to have devout prayers with their chaplains, even as the French who offered prayers morning and evening for their crews. Our nation prayed, fasted, and beseeched the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob regularly, then gave thanks to God in line with Psalm 51:17 and Leviticus 7:12, respectively.

When we look at the congressional record on thanksgiving and appreciation to God, our nation’s history is rich. We find in this first prayer and supplication to God likened to Psalm 51 – a broken and contrite heart is the heart of man that knows its depravity. As real leaders should, our national leadership called for periods of prayer, fasting, humility and supplication to God for their national sins. This was followed by prayers of thanksgiving and joy at the answers to previous prayer and dependence upon God’s deliverance in the calamity in which they lived.

Behind these penitent displays of national worship to God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, we find abundant prayers of thanks. These thank-full prayers were much like those given in Leviticus 7:12 – a fellowship offering with offerings (broken and contrite hearts) of thanksgiving contained within. The entire section of Leviticus 7:11-15 deals with these fellowship and thank offerings. This penitence and thanks of our nation in history is where we will concentrate our time. True leaders, our founding fathers, recognized their being in fellowship with the Lord when they saw successes in battle, and great abundance of provision. National leaders regularly gave God these thanks when they saw prayers of humility, and submission answered. Real leaders know where they get their authority from; and it is not from a good political speech, not from saying whatever we can to engender friendship, but from God.

Therefore, our national Thanksgiving Day did not just come from the adoration of a few to God when they were provided for in 1623 as Pilgrims in this land. This national thanksgiving came from a history of recognition in America – of giving thanks to the great provider and creator God for all He does and has done. It is true; the most glaring truth we have ever heard is that of the Pilgrims who in 1623 were very prosperous. This prosperity came on the heels of a great drought. Governor Bradford called the entire colony to prayer and fasting and seeking God’s direct intervention. Indians witnessed the scene of the colony gathering, praying, and fasting. Shortly afterwards, clouds appeared and as Bradford himself records, “It came without either wind or thunder or any violence, and by degrees in abundance, as that ye earth was thoroughly wet and soaked therewith….” Corn likes a slow, misty rain intermingled with sun, and that is exactly what they received in perfect timing. Bradford continues to say,

“ye Indians astonished to behold; and afterwards the Lord sent them such seasonable showers, with interchange of fair warm weather as, through His blessing, caused a fruitful and liberal harvest…”

Bradford, rightfully, gives all credit to God for the increase. This is our national heritage and it did not stop with the Pilgrims.

I thought that today, we would spend some time reviewing the 15 occurrences of our Nation’s prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving in the war for independence. If this took place again on a national scale, I have no doubt we would prevail in our current conflict, and put liberalism, relativism, secularism, and atheism on their heels. What you find then below are the exact quotes from the Continental Congressional minutes as taken by the recorder on the days indicated.

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789
MONDAY, JUNE 12, 1775[1]

The Congress met according to adjournment.

The committee, appointed for preparing a resolve for a fast, brought in a report, which, being read, was agreed to as follows:

As the great Governor of the World, by his supreme and universal Providence, not only conducts the course of nature with unerring wisdom and rectitude, but frequently influences the minds of men to serve the wise and gracious purposes of his providential government; and it being, at all times, our indispensible duty devoutly to acknowledge his superintending providence, especially in times of impending danger and public calamity, to reverence and adore his immutable justice as well as to implore his merciful interposition for our deliverance:

This Congress, therefore, considering the present critical, alarming and calamitous state of these colonies, do earnestly recommend that Thursday, the 20th day of July next, be observed, by the inhabitants of all the English colonies on this continent, as a day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer; that we may, with united hearts and voices, unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins; and offer up our joint supplications to the all-wise, omnipotent, and merciful Disposer of all events; humbly beseeching him to forgive our iniquities, to remove our present calamities, to avert those desolating judgments, with which we are threatned, and to bless our rightful sovereign, King George the third, and [to] inspire him with wisdom to discern and pursue the true interest of all his subjects, that a speedy end may be put to the civil discord between Great Britain and the American colonies, without farther effusion of blood: And that the British nation may be influenced to regard the things that belong to her peace, before they are hid from her eyes: That these colonies may be ever under the care and protection of a kind Providence, and be prospered in all their interests; That the divine blessing may descend and rest upon all our civil rulers, and upon the representatives of the people, in their several assemblies and conventions, that they may be directed to wise and effectual measures for preserving the union, and securing the just rights and priviledges of the colonies; That virtue and true religion may revive and flourish throughout our land; And that all America may soon behold a gracious interposition of Heaven, for the redress of her many grievances, the restoration of her invaded rights, a reconcilation with the parent state, on terms constitutional and honorable to both; And that her civil and religious priviledges may be secured to the latest posterity.

If these Deists do not believe that God intervenes in the life of man or deals intimately with the lives of men and the earth, why are they specifically imploring His involvements in their current situation? As you read, you can continue to ask this very same question.

And it is recommended to Christians, of all denominations, to assemble for public worship, and to abstain from servile labour and recreations on said day.

If these men who are supposedly secularists do not desire God to be involved in government, and particularly the government of the United States of America, and specifically the Christian God of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac, the Son of God sent for all, why do they call upon only Christians (numerous times in these texts) to assemble and pray publicly?

Ordered, That a copy of the above be signed by the president and attested by the Secy and published in the newspapers, and in hand bills.¹

[Note 1: 1 It was printed in the Pennsylvania Packet, 19 June, 1775. A portion of one of the original broadside issues is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 23, folio 5.
The entry in the Journal of this resolve is in the writing of Timothy Matlack.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Nine months later
SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1776

Mr. W[illiam] Livingston, pursuant to leave granted, brought in a resolution for appointing a fast, which being taken into consideration, was agreed to as follows:

In times of impending calamity and distress; when the liberties of America are imminently endangered by the secret machinations and open assaults of an insidious and vindictive administration, it becomes the indispensable duty of these hitherto free and happy colonies, with true penitence of heart, and the most reverent devotion, publickly to acknowledge the over ruling providence of God; to confess and deplore our offences against him; and to supplicate his interposition for averting the threatened danger, and prospering our strenuous efforts in the cause of freedom, virtue, and posterity.

The public confession of God and His providence is what Christians are told was never intended in our freedom of religion. Yet we find here, Congress specifically called for confessing and deploring our offences against Him.

The Congress, therefore, considering the warlike preparations of the British Ministry to subvert our invaluable rights and priviledges, and to reduce us by fire and sword, by the savages of the wilderness, and our own domestics, to the most abject and ignominious bondage: Desirous, at the same time, to have people of all ranks and degrees duly impressed with a solemn sense of God’s superintending providence, and of their duty, devoutly to rely, in all their lawful enterprizes, on his aid and direction, Do earnestly recommend, that Friday, the Seventeenth day of May next, be observed by the said colonies as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and, by a sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his righteous displeasure, and, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon and forgiveness; humbly imploring his assistance to frustrate the cruel purposes of our unnatural enemies; and by inclining their hearts to justice and benevolence, prevent the further effusion of kindred blood. But if, continuing deaf to the voice of reason and humanity, and inflexibly bent, on desolation and war, they constrain us to repel their hostile invasions by open resistance, that it may please the Lord of Hosts, the God of Armies, to animate our officers and soldiers with invincible fortitude, to guard and protect them in the day of battle, and to crown the continental arms, by sea and land, with victory and success: Earnestly beseeching him to bless our civil rulers, and the representatives of the people, in their several assemblies and conventions; to preserve and strengthen their union, to inspire them with an ardent, disinterested love of their country; to give wisdom and stability to their counsels; and direct them to the most efficacious measures for establishing the rights of America on the most honourable and permanent basis–That he would be graciously pleased to bless all his people in these colonies with health and plenty, and grant that a spirit of incorruptible patriotism, and of pure undefiled religion, may universally prevail; and this continent be speedily restored to the blessings of peace and liberty, and enabled to transmit them inviolate to the latest posterity. And it is recommended to Christians of all denominations, to assemble for public worship, and abstain from servile labour on the said day.

Here we find the true faith of the men who founded this country, and it is not a faith in no god (Atheism) or in themselves (humanism) or in a rational politic (relativism) or in a society free of God which combines all these religions to be secularism. No, these men on Saturday, March 16, 1776 called for the people of the Colonies which would become the United States of America to humble themselves, repent of their sins, change their life and seek Jesus Christ and His intervention to pardon their evil. Why? The reason is given, to “appease his righteous displeasure.” They sought freedom and victory in war, but they knew that only pleasing God would get them there, and the only way to please God was get right with His Son and have the Son of God intervene for victory.

Resolved, That the foregoing resolve be published.¹

[Note 1: 1 Printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 20 March, 1776.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Nine months later
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1776

The committee appointed to prepare a resolution for appointing a day of fasting and humiliation, brought in a report, which was read and agreed to, as follows:

Whereas, the war in which the United States are engaged with Great Britain, has not only been prolonged, but is likely to be carried to the greatest extremity; and whereas, it becomes all public bodies, as well as private persons, to reverence the Providence of God, and look up to him as the supreme disposer of all events, and the arbiter of the fate of nations; therefore,

We should note here that the Congress of the Continental States of America attribute their current failures in the battle field and in their fight for freedom to NATIONAL SIN!

Resolved, That it be recommended to all the United States, as soon as possible, to appoint a day of solemn fasting and humiliation; to implore of Almighty God the forgiveness of the many sins prevailing among all ranks, and to beg the countenance and assistance of his Providence in the prosecution of the present just and necessary war.

The Congress do also, in the most earnest manner, recommend to all the members of the United States, and particularly the officers civil and military under them, the exercise of repentance and reformation; and further, require of them the strict observation of the articles of war, and particularly, that part of the said articles, which forbids profane swearing, and all immorality, of which all such officers are desired to take notice.

If our forefathers were mostly Deists and secularists, their calling upon the nation and specifically those in the ranks fighting for freedom, to repent and reform their lives for God does not make sense. This is a call to cleanse themselves and submit themselves to God. This is very much akin to the plea of David in Psalm 51:2 and David’s acknowledgement of true worship in Psalm 51:17.

It is left to each state to issue out proclamations fixing the days that appear most proper within their several bounds.

Ordered, That the above be published by the committee who brought in the report.

[Note 1: 1 This letter is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 152, III, folio 335.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 eleven months later
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1777

The committee appointed to prepare a recommendation to these states, to set apart a day of thanksgiving, brought in a report; which was agreed to as follows:

Forasmuch as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to him for benefits received, and to implore such farther blessings as they stand in need of; and it having pleased him in his abundant mercy not only to continue to us the innumerable bounties of his common providence, but also to smile upon us in the prosecution of a just and necessary war, for the defence and establishment of our unalienable rights and liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased in so great a measure to prosper the means used for the support of our troops and to crown our arms with most signal success: It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive powers of these United States, to set apart Thursday, the eighteenth day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise; that with one heart¹ and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor; and that together with their sincere acknowledgments and offerings, they may join the penitent confession of their manifold sins, whereby they had forfeited every favour, and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance; that it may please him graciously to afford his blessing on the governments of these states respectively, and prosper the public council of the whole; to inspire our commanders both by land and sea, and all under them, with that wisdom and fortitude which may render them fit instruments, under the providence of Almighty God, to secure for these United States the greatest of all human blessings, independence and peace; that it may please him to prosper the trade and manufactures of the people and the labour of the husbandman, that our land may yet yield its increase; to take schools and seminaries of education, so necessary for cultivating the principles of true liberty, virtue and piety, under his nurturing hand, and to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth “in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

This text not only calls for the people of the country to thank God for the successes they have seen. They also ask for specific involvement of the Triune God in the person of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Historians say these are secularists. It appears that true history bears them out as Christians, focused upon God, His Son, and His Spirit. If they are secularists and humanists, and our nation was founded under those tenets as our current day historians would have us believe, how can they vote to designate a national day, “as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God”?

[Note 1: 1 The original read: "That at one time and with one voice."]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Four months later
SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1778

The committee appointed to prepare a recommendation to the several states, for setting apart a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, brought in the same; which was read and agreed to as follows:

Whereas, Almighty God, in the righteous dispensation of his providence, hath permitted the continuation of a cruel and desolating war in our land; and it being at all times the duty of a people to acknowledge God in all his ways, and more especially to humble themselves before him when evident tokens of his displeasure are manifested; to acknowledge his righteous government; confess, and forsake their evil ways; and implore his mercy:

Resolved, That it be recommended to the United States of America to set apart Wednesday, the 22d day of April next, to be observed as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer; that at one time, and with one voice, the inhabitants may acknowledge the righteous dispensations of Divine Providence, and confess their iniquities and transgressions, for which the land mourneth; that they may implore the mercy and forgiveness of God; and beseech him that vice, prophaneness, extortion, and every evil, may be done away; and that we may be a reformed and happy people; that they may unite in humble and earnest supplication, that it may please Almighty God, to guard and defend us against our enemies, and give vigour and success to our military operations by sea and land; that it may please him to bless the civil rulers and people, strengthen and perpetuate our union, and, in his own good time, establish us in the peaceable enjoyment of our rights and liberties; that it may please him to bless our schools and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of true piety, virtue and useful knowledge; that it may please him to cause the earth to yield its increase, and to crown the year with his goodness.

Supposedly these men did not believe God was specifically involved in their effort, yet we read that they call for the inhabitants of the nation to “[a]cknowledge the righteous dispensations of Divine Providence.”

And it is recommended to the inhabitants of the United States to abstain, on that day, from labour and recreations.

Resolved, That the Commander in Chief, or commander of a department, shall have full power and authority to suspend or limit the power of granting furloughs or leave of absence, and to reserve it wholly to himself, or impart it to such officer or officers, under him, as he thinks fit, according as he shall judge the good of the service requires; and that no officer, under colour or pretence of authority, to him granted, by the 2d article of the 4th section, or any other article, in the rules and articles of war, presume to grant any furlough, or leave of absence, contrary to the orders of the Commander in Chief, or commander of a department, on pain of being punished for disobedience.

[Note 1: 1 This report, in the writing of Nathan Brownson(?), is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 19, V, folio 249.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Eight months later
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1778

Congress resumed the consideration of the recommendation to the states for setting apart a day of thanksgiving, which being amended, is as follows:

Page 1139 |

It having pleased Almighty God, through the course of the present year, to bestow great and manifold mercies on the people of these United States; and it being the indispensable duty of all men gratefully to acknowledge their obligations to Him for benefits received:

Resolved, That it be, and hereby is recommended to the legislative or executive authority of each of the said states, to appoint Wednesday, the 30th day of December next, to be observed as a day of public thanksgiving and praise, that all the people may, with united hearts, on that day, express a just sense of his unmerited favours; particularly in that it hath pleased him, by his overruling providence, to support us in a just and necessary war, for the defence of our rights and liberties, by affording us seasonable supplies for our armies, by disposing the heart of a powerful monarch to enter into alliance with us, and aid our cause; by defeating the councils and evil designs of our enemies, and giving us victory over their troops; and, by the continuance of that union among these states, which, by his blessing, will be their future strength and glory.

And it is further recommended, that, together with devout thanksgiving, may be joined a penitent confession of our sins, and humble supplication for pardon, through the merits of our Saviour; so that, under the smiles of Heaven, our public councils may be directed, our arms by land and sea prospered, our liberty and independence secured, our schools and seminaries of learning flourish, our trade be revived, our husbandry and manufactures encreased, and the hearts of all impressed with undissembled piety, with benevolence and zeal for the public good.

Once again imploring the people of the nation to not only give thanks, but to “be joined a penitent confession of our sins, and humble supplication for pardon, through the merits of our Savior (capitalized in their writings as a proper noun, indicating Jesus Christ) so that, under the smiles of Heaven, our public councils may be directed.” Once again, the Deist secularist founders are calling for direct intervention of God through the salvation of Jesus Christ for the people of the nation to give us liberty and independence. Note – they also pray for “schools and seminaries of learning to flourish.” We must ask how often has our Congress prayed and requested that God would flourish our seminaries today?

And it is also recommended, that recreations unsuitable to the purpose of such a solemnity may be omitted on that day.

Done in Congress, this 17th day of November, 1778, and in the third year of the independence of the United States of America.¹

[Note 1: 1 This proclamation, in the writing of Samuel Adams, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 24, folio 445. It is endorsed as having passed November 3.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Four months later
SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1779

The committee appointed to prepare a recommendation to the several states to set apart a day of fasting humiliation and prayer, brought in a draught, which was taken into consideration, and agreed to as follows:

Whereas, in just punishment of our manifold transgressions, it hath pleased the Supreme Disposer of all events to visit these United States with a destructive calamitous war, through which His divine Providence hath, hitherto, in a wonderful manner, conducted us, so that we might acknowledge that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong: and whereas, there is but too much Reason to fear that notwithstanding the chastisements received and benefits bestowed, too few have been sufficiently awakened to a sense of their guilt, or warmed our Bosoms with gratitude, or taught to amend their lives and turn from their sins, that so He might turn from His wrath. And whereas, from a consciousness of what we have merited at His hands, and an apprehension that the malevolence of our disappointed enemies, like the incredulity of Pharaoh, may be used as the scourge of Omnipotence to vindicate his slighted Majesty, there is reason to fear that he may permit much of our land to become the prey of the spoiler, and the Blood of the innocent be poured out that our borders to be ravaged, and our habitations destroyed:

Fear is assuaged by faith? This is a new revelation for men who purportedly do not believe in God’s involvement in the lives of men. Another revelation is seen in this paragraph that says, “too few have been sufficiently awakened to a sense of their guilt, or warmed to our bosoms with gratitude, or taught to amend their lives and turn from their sins.” Can our national leaders at the time be advocating repentance on a national level and that the lack of it was a cause of continued war? They further reference in this paragraph a comparison to Israel under Pharaoh and the United States under Great Britain. Ladies and gentlemen, these men knew where their power and authority came from – and it is not in their own minds, in their own reason, in their own abilities but from God and His Word, and that alone.

Resolved, That it be recommended to the several states to appoint the first Thursday in May next, to be a day of fasting, Thanksgiving humiliation and prayer to Almighty God, that he will be pleased to avert those impending calamities which we have but too well deserved: that he will grant us his grace to repent of our sins, and amend our lives, according to his holy word: that he will continue that wonderful protection which hath led us through the paths of danger and distress: that he will be a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless children, who weep over the barbarities of a savage enemy: that he will grant us patience in suffering, and fortitude in adversity: that he will inspire us with humility and moderation, and gratitude in prosperous circumstances: that he will give wisdom to our councils, firmness to our resolutions, and victory to our arms That he will have Mercy on our Foes, and graciously forgive them, and turn their Hearts from Enmity to Love.

“Love thine enemies” is also a scripture many allude to but have no concept of the truths therein. Here we see a national leadership of biblically minded, believing men who knew what it meant. Loving the enemy means, you pray for them; but you must still fight them to establish the things of righteousness. Loving your enemies does not mean you give up, give in, or appease them. It means, you fight to the death, but you hold them up before God in the process.

That he will bless the labours of the husbandman, and pour forth abundance, so that we may enjoy the fruits of the earth in due season.

[That he will cause union, harmony, and mutual confidence to prevail throughout these states: that he will bestow on our great ally all those blessings which may enable him to be gloriously instrumental in protecting the rights of mankind, and promoting the happiness of his subjects and advancing the Peace and Liberty of Nations. That he will give to both Parties to this Alliance, Grace to perform with Honor and Fidelity their National Engagements].¹ That he will bountifully continue his paternal care to the commander in chief, and the officers and soldiers of the United States: that he will grant the blessings of peace to all contending nations, freedom to those who are in bondage, and comfort to the afflicted: that he will diffuse useful knowledge, extend the influence of true religion, and give us that peace of mind, which the world cannot give: that he will be our shield in the day of battle, our comforter in the hour of death, and our kind parent and merciful judge through time and through eternity.

[Note 1: 1 Words in brackets are in writing of John Jay.]

Done in Congress, this 20th day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, and in the third year of our independence.

John Jay, President.

Attest, Charles Thomson, Secretary.²

[Note 2: 2 This proclamation, in the writing of Gouverneur Morris, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 24, folio 437.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Seven months later
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1779

The committee appointed to prepare a recommendation to the several states, for setting apart the second Thursday in December next, as a day of general thanksgiving, brought in a draught, which was agreed to as follows:

Whereas it becomes us humbly 50 approach the throne of Almighty God, with gratitude and praise for the wonders which his goodness has wrought in conducting our fore-fathers to this western world; for his protection to them and to their posterity amid difficulties and dangers; for raising us, their children, from deep distress to be numbered among the nations of the earth; and for arming the hands of just and mighty princes in our deliverance; and especially for that he hath been pleased to grant us the enjoyment of health, and so to order the revolving seasons, that the earth hath produced her increase in abundance, blessing the labors of the husbandmen, and spreading plenty through the land; that he hath prospered our arms and those of our ally; been a shield to our troops in the hour of danger, pointed their swords to victory and led them in triumph over the bulwarks of the foe; that he hath gone with those who went out into the wilderness against the savage tribes; that he hath stayed the hand of the spoiler, and turned back his meditated destruction; that he hath prospered our commerce, and given success to those who sought the enemy on the face of the deep; and above all, that he hath diffused the glorious light of the gospel, whereby, through the merits of our gracious Redeemer, we may become the heirs of his eternal glory: therefore,

Our early leaders knew God’s light of knowledge and called the nation to understand it as well. Another revelation here is that these states, “would establish independence” on the “basis of religion and virtue” not on the absence thereof. As I read these writings this last week what amazed me was that the secularist and historical revisionist would not take the things taught by any Christian as fact without checking themselves; yet when another secularist espouses something, it is accepted without question as fact. Christians know better. We know man can make mistakes and often does, based upon his personal agenda. We review the statements of others because of this and humble ourselves to the errors we make. I see no sense of humility in our culture today, and especially in academia that holds the falsehoods they purport about our national history as truth. Those things lack virtue because they are without religion. Our forefathers knew these two things were essential in our national fabric.

Resolved, That it be recommended to the several states, to appoint Thursday, the 9th of December next, to be a day of public and solemn thanksgiving to Almighty God for his mercies, and of prayer for the continuance of his favor and protection to these United States; to beseech him that he would be graciously pleased to influence our public councils, and bless them with wisdom from on high, with unanimity, firmness, and success; that he would go forth with our hosts and crown our arms with victory; that he would grant to his church the plentiful effusions of divine grace, and pour out his holy spirit on all ministers of the gospel; that he would bless and prosper the means of education, and spread the light of christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth; that he would smile upon the labours of his people and cause the earth to bring forth her fruits in abundance; that we may with gratitude and gladness enjoy them; that he would take into his holy protection our illustrious ally, give him victory over his enemies, and render him signally great, as the father of his people and the protector of the rights of mankind; that he would graciously be pleased to turn the hearts of our enemies, and to dispense the blessings of peace to contending nations; that he would in mercy look down upon us, pardon our sins and receive us into his favor, and finally, that he would establish the independence of these United States upon the basis of religion and virtue, and support and protect them in the enjoyment of peace, liberty and safety. as long as the sun and moon shall endure, until time shall be no more.

What we find interspersed throughout these declarations are intercessory prayers for our allies – in this case France, and later Spain as they enter. In addition, there is here clear indication that the leaders of our early nation knew eschatology and understood that this world would come to an end. They are asking that America endure until there is a new Heaven and a new Earth.

Done in Congress, ∥ the 20th day of October, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, and in the 4th year of the independence of the United States of America.

Samuel Huntington, President.

Attest,
Charles Thomson, Secretary. ∥¹

[Note 1: 1 This proclamation was entered in the Journals by George Bend. In the writing of Jesse Root, it is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 24, folio 447.]

George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 4. General Correspondence. 1697-1799

Six months later – This is a personal proclamation made by George Washington that I transcribed here from a copy of his hand written letter.

Continental Congress, March 11, 1780, Proclamation of Day of Fasting

Transcript:

It having pleased the righteous governor of the World for the punishment of our manifold offences, to limit the sword of war still to harass our country; it becomes us to endeavor by humbling ourselves before him, and turning from every evil way to avert his anger and obtain his favours and blessing; it is therefore hereby recommended to the several States,

That Wednesday the twenty sixth day of April next be set apart and observed as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer that the Sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth to remember mercy in his judgments; to make us sincerely penitent for our transgressions; to prepare us for deliverance, and to remove the eviles with which he hath been pleased to visit us; to banish vice and irreligion from among us, and establish virtue and pity by his divine grace; to bless all public councils throughout the United States, giving them wisdom, firmness and unanimity, and directing them to the best measures for the public good; to bless the magistrates and people of every rank, and animate and unite the hearts of all to promote the interest of their country; to bless the public defence, imparting all commanders and soldiers with magnanimity and perseverance and giving vigor and strength to the military operations by sea and land; to bless the illustrious Sovereign and the nation in alliance with these states, and all who interest themselves in the support of our rights and liberties; to make that alliance of perpetual and intensive usefulness to those immediately concerned and mankind in general. To grant fruitful seasons, and to bless our industry, trade and manufacturers; to bless all schools and seminaries of learning and every means of instruction and education; to cause wars to cease and to establish peace among the nations.

Specifically, we see a military commander praying and asking for prayer for his troop’s success. A true military commander wants the conflict to end immediately to limit the vital blood-let resources given by every soldier on the field.

And it is further recommended that servile labour and recreation be forbidden on the said day.

Done in Congress on the eleventh day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred eighty and in the fourth year of our Independence.

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Six months later
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1780

Congress took into consideration the resolution reported for setting apart a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and agreed to the following draught:

Whereas² it hath pleased Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, amidst the vicissitudes and calamities of war, to bestow blessings on the people of these states, which call for their devout and thankful acknowledgments, more especially in the late remarkable interposition of his watchful providence, in rescuing the person of our Commander in Chief and the army from imminent dangers, at the moment when treason was ripened for execution; in prospering the labours of the husbandmen, and causing the earth to yield its increase in plentiful harvests; and, above all, in continuing to us the enjoyment of the gospel of peace;

An attempt on George Washington’s life was averted by the providential intervention of God.

[Note 2: 2 From this point the entries are by Thomas Edison.]

It is therefore recommended to the several states to set apart Thursday, the seventh day [of December next, to be observed as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer; that all the people may assemble on that day to celebrate the praises of our Divine Benefactor; to confess our unworthiness of the least of his favours, and to offer our fervent supplications to the God of all grace; that it may please him to pardon our heinous transgressions and incline our hearts for the future to keep all his laws that it may please him still to afford us the blessing of health; to comfort and relieve our brethren who are any wise afflicted or distressed; to smile upon our husbandry and trade and establish the work of our hands; to direct our publick councils, and lead our forces, by land and sea, to victory; to take our illustrious ally under his special protection, and favor our joint councils and exertions for the establishment of speedy and permanent peace; to cherish all schools and seminaries of education, build up his churches in their most holy faith and to cause the knowledge of Christianity to spread over all the earth.

These are prayers requesting that God build the Church of Christ “over all the earth.” Our founding fathers not only believed in Christ for salvation, not only called for the people of the United States to call to Him, humble themselves before Him, and repent of sins to change their lives; they espoused, supported, prayed for, and in all ways called for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His knowledge and church to be spread over the whole earth. This is a prayer of Congress to “build up his churches in their most holy faith” What wonderful leaders we had, and what a bereft leadership we currently “enjoy” in our nation. Pray folks, pray as our forefathers prayed.

Done in Congress, the lath day of October, 1780, and in the fifth year of the independence of the United States of America.]¹

[Note 1: 1 This report is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 24, folio 455. It is in the writing of James Duane, except the portion in brackets, which is in the writing of Samuel Adams. From this point Charles Thomson resumes the entries.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Six months later
TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1781.

The report of the committee appointed to prepare a recommendation to these states, to set apart a day of humiliation and prayer was taken into consideration; and thereupon

The United States in Congress assembled, agreed to the following proclamation:

In times of calamity and impending danger when a vindictive enemy pursues with unrelenting fury a war of rapine and devastation to reduce us by fire and sword, by the savages of the wilderness and our own domestics to the most abject and ignominious bondage; it becomes the indespensible duty of the citizens of these United States with true penitence of heart publicly to acknowledge the over ruling Providence of God, to confess our offences against him, and to supplicate his gracious interposition for averting the threatened danger and preparing our efforts in the defence and preservation of our injured country.

At all times it is our duty to acknowledge the over-ruling providence of the great Governor of the universe, and devoutly to implore his divine favour and protection. But in the hour of calamity and impending danger, when by fire and the sword, by the savages of the wilderness, and by our own domestics, a vindictive enemy pursues a war of rapine and devastation, with unrelenting fury, we are peculiarly excited, with true penitence of heart, to prostrate ourselves before our great Creator, and fervently to supplicate his gracious interposition for our deliverance.

Though the secularist would say the phrase “Governor of the universe” is a Deistic reference, I believe that these few quotes in the over 900 pages of this journal have proven that this is not a general, but a specific reference to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God, the Father of Jesus.[2] Moreover, it is that very and specific God that is in control, not just any god, but the only God. The one great I AM.

The United States in Congress assembled, therefore do earnestly recommend, that Thursday the third day of May next, may be observed as a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer, that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and by sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his righteous displeasure, and through the merits of our blessed Saviour, obtain pardon and forgiveness: that it may please him to inspire our rulers with wisdom and uncorruptible integrity, and to direct and prosper their councils: to inspire all our citizens with a fervent and disinterested love of their country, and to preserve and strengthen their union: to turn the hearts of the disaffected, or to frustrate their devices: to regard with divine compassion our friends in captivity, affliction and distress, to comfort and relieve them under their sufferings, and to change their mourning into grateful songs of triumph: that it may please him to bless our ally, and to render the connection formed between these United States and his kingdoms a mutual and lasting benefit to both nations: to animate our officers and forces by sea and land with invincible fortitude, and to guard and protect them in the day of battle, and to crown our joint endeavours for terminating the calamities of war with victory and success: that the blessings of peace and liberty may be established on an honourable and permanent basis, and transmitted inviolate to the latest posterity: that it may please him to prosper our husbandry and commerce, and to bless us with health and plenty: that it may please him to bless all schools and seminaries of learning, and to grant that truth, justice and benevolence, and pure and undefiled religion, may universally prevail.

And it is recommended to all the people of these states, to assemble for public worship, and abstain from labour on the said day.¹

[Note 1: 1 This report, in the writing of James Duane, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 24, folio 459.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Six months later
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1781

The committee, ∥consisting of Mr. Witherspoon, Mr. Montgomery, Mr. Varnum, Mr. Sherman,∥ appointed to prepare a recommendation for setting apart a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, reported the draught of a proclamation, which was agreed to as follows:

PROCLAMATION

Whereas, it hath pleased Almighty God, the supreme Disposer of all Events father of mercies, remarkably to assist and support the United States of America in their important struggle for liberty, against the long continued efforts of a powerful nation: it is the duty of all ranks to observe and thankfully acknowledge the interpositions of his Providence in their behalf. Through the whole of the contest, from its first rise to this time, the influence of divine Providence may be clearly perceived in many signal instances, of which we mention but a few.

In revealing the councils of our enemies, when the discoveries were seasonable and important, and the means seemingly inadequate or fortuitous; in preserving and even improving the union of the several states, on the breach of which our enemies placed their greatest dependence; in increasing the number, and adding to the zeal and attachment of the friends of Liberty; in granting remarkable deliverances, and blessing us with the most signal success, when affairs seemed to have the most discouraging appearance; in raising up for us a powerful and generous ally, in one of the first of the European powers; in confounding the councils of our enemies, and suffering them to pursue such measures as have most directly contributed to frustrate their own desires and expectations; above all, in making their extreme cruelty of their officers and soldiers to the inhabitants of these states, when in their power, and their savage devastation of property, the very means of cementing our union, and adding vigor to every effort in opposition to them.

Our forefathers believed that God used the abusive tactics of the English to turn the people toward the fight, invigorate their spirits and their opposition. God added to the zeal of the people for liberty by delivering them from evil and blessing the country even with these abusive challenges. Yet, to most of the people of our country today, these first national leaders were secularists, even atheists, or at best Deists. It is time to get the truth of our nation out. We are a Christian nation – not Muslim, not Israeli, not Catholic – but Christian.

And as we cannot help leading the good people of these states to a retrospect on the events which have taken place since the beginning of the war, so we beg recommend in a particular manner that they may observe and acknowledge to their observation, the goodness of God in the year now drawing to a conclusion: in which

A mutiny in the American Army was not only happily appeased but became in its issue a pleasing and undeniable proof of the unalterable attachment of the people in general to the cause of liberty since great and real grievances only made them tumultuously seek redress while the abhorred the thoughts of going over to the enemy, in which the Confederation of the United States has been completed by the accession of all without exception in which there have been so many instances of prowess and success in our armies; particularly in the southern states, where, notwithstanding the difficulties with which they had to struggle, they have recovered the whole country which the enemy had overrun, leaving them only a post or two upon on or near the sea: in which we have been so powerfully and effectually assisted by our allies, while in all the conjunct operations the most perfect union and harmony has subsisted in the allied army: in which there has been so plentiful a harvest, and so great abundance of the fruits of the earth of every kind, as not only enables us easily to supply the wants of the army, but gives comfort and happiness to the whole people: and in which, after the success of our allies by sea, a General of the first Rank, with his whole army, has been captured by the allied forces under the direction of our illustrious Commander in Chief.

It is therefore recommended to the several states to set apart the 13th day of December next, to be religiously observed as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer; that all the people may assemble on that day, with grateful hearts, to celebrate the praises of our gracious Benefactor; to confess our manifold sins; to offer up our most fervent supplications to the God of all grace, that it may please Him to pardon our offences, and incline our hearts for the future to keep all his laws; to comfort and relieve all our brethren who are in distress or captivity; to prosper our husbandmen, and give success to all engaged in lawful commerce; to impart wisdom and integrity to our counsellors, judgment and fortitude to our officers and soldiers; to protect and prosper our illustrious ally, and favor our united exertions for the speedy establishment of a safe, honorable and lasting peace; to bless all seminaries of learning; and cause the knowledge of God to cover the earth, as the waters cover the seas.¹

[Note 1: 1 This report, in the writing of John Witherspoon, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 24, folio 463.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Six months later
TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1782

On a report of a committee, consisting of Mr. [Joseph] Montgomery, Mr. [Oliver] Wolcott, and Mr. [John Morin] Scott, appointed to prepare a recommendation to the several states, to set apart a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer Congress agreed to the following

Proclamation:

The goodness of the Supreme Being to all his rational creatures, demands their acknowledgments of gratitude and love; his absolute government of this world dictates, that it is the interest of every nation and people ardently to supplicate his mercy favor and implore his protection.

Our founding fathers believed that God was the absolute governor of the world. Governors are involved and directly interested in the operations of that which they govern. God is equally involved and interested in His creation.

When the lust of dominion or lawless ambition excites arbitrary power to invade the rights, or endeavor to wrench wrest from a people their sacred and unalienable invaluable privileges, and compels them, in defence of the same, to encounter all the horrors and calamities of a bloody and vindictive war; then is that people loudly called upon to fly unto that God for protection, who hears the eries of the distressed, and will not turn a deaf ear to the supplication of the oppressed.

Great Britain, hitherto left to infatuated councils, and to pursue measures repugnant to their her own interest, and distressing to this country, still persists in the chimerical idea design of subjugating these United States; which will compel us into another active and perhaps bloody campaign.

The United States in Congress assembled, therefore, taking into consideration our present situation, our multiplied transgressions of the holy laws of our God, and his past acts of kindness and goodness exercised towards us, which we would ought to record with the liveliest gratitude, think it their indispensable duty to call upon the different several states, to set apart the last Thursday in April next, as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, that our joint supplications may then ascend to the throne of the Ruler of the Universe, beseeching Him that he would to diffuse a spirit of universal reformation among all ranks and degrees of our citizens; and make us a holy, that so we may be an happy people; that it would please Him to impart wisdom, integrity and unanimity to our counsellors; to bless and prosper the reign of our illustrious ally, and give success to his arms employed in the defence of the rights of human nature; that He would smile upon our military arrangements by land and sea; administer comfort and consolation to our prisoners in a cruel captivity; that he would protect the health and life of our Commander in Chief; give grant us victory over our enemies; establish peace in all our borders, and give happiness to all our inhabitants; that he would prosper the labor of the husbandman, making the earth yield its increase in abundance, and give a proper season for the in gathering of the fruits thereof; that He would grant success to all engaged in lawful trade and commerce, and take under his guardianship all schools and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of virtue and piety; that He would incline the hearts of all men to peace, and fill them with universal charity and benevolence, and that the religion of our Divine Redeemer, with all its benign influences, may cover the earth as the waters cover the seas.

In the first sentences of this paragraph, we find direct reference to the authority of scripture in “our multiplied transgressions of the holy laws of our God.” The men of our first Congress, of our first Senate, of our first Executive branch knew who God was and believed in the “Divine Redeemer” and His word’s authority. We also see that God is the “Ruler of the Universe” – recognition that there is one ruler to whom everyone is accountable. This denies relativism, it denies Deism, it denies secularism, and it denies atheism. These are our founding fathers.

Done by the United States in Congress assembled, &c. &c.¹

[Note 1: 1 This report, in the writing of a clerk, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 24, folio 467.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 Six months later
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1782

On the report of a committee, consisting of Mr. [John] Witherspoon, Mr. [Joseph] Montgomery and Mr. [Hugh] Williamson, appointed to prepare a recommendation to the states, setting apart a day of thanksgiving and prayer, Congress agreed to the following act:

It being the indispensable duty of all nations, not only to offer up their supplications to Almighty God, the giver of all good, for his gracious assistance in the a time of public distress, but also in a solemn and public manner to give him praise for his goodness in general, and especially for great and signal interpositions of his Providence in their behalf; therefore, the United States in Congress assembled, taking into their consideration the many instances of divine goodness to these states, in the course of the important conflict in which they have been so long engaged; and the present happy and promising state of public affairs; and the events of the war in the course of the last year now drawing to a close, particularly the harmony of the public councils, which is so necessary to the success of the public cause; the perfect union and good understanding which has hitherto subsisted between them and their allies, notwithstanding the artful and unwearied attempts of the common enemy to sow dissension between them divide them; the success of the arms of the United States and those of their allies, and the acknowledgment of their independence by another European power, whose friendship and commerce must be of great and lasting advantage to these states; and the success of their arms and those of their allies in different parts do hereby recommend it to the inhabitants of these states in general, to observe, and recommend it to the executives of request the several states to interpose their authority in appointing and requiring commanding the observation of the last Thursday, in the 28 day of November next, as a day of solemn thanksgiving to God for all his mercies: and they do further recommend to all ranks, to testify their gratitude to God for his goodness, by a cheerful obedience to his laws, and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness. Given, &c.¹

[Note 1: 1 This report, in the writing of John Witherspoon, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 24, folio 471.]

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 One Year later – the war ended September 3, 1783.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1783

The committee, consisting of Mr. [James] Duane, Mr. S[amuel] Huntington and Mr. [Samuel] Holten, appointed to prepare a proclamation for a day of thanksgiving, reported a draft, which was agreed to as follows:

By the United States in Congress assembled.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas it hath pleased the Supreme Ruler of all human events, to dispose the hearts of the late belligerent powers to put a period to the effusion of human blood, by proclaiming a cessation of all hostilities by sea and land, and these United States are not only happily rescued from the dangers distresses and calamities which they have so long and so magnanimously sustained to which they have been so long exposed, but their freedom, sovereignty and independence ultimately acknowledged by the king of Great Britain. And whereas in the progress of a contest on which the most essential rights of human nature depended, the interposition of Divine Providence in our favour hath been most abundantly and most graciously manifested, and the citizens of these United States have every possible reason for praise and gratitude to the God of their salvation. Impressed, therefore, with an exalted sense of the magnitude of the blessings by which we are surrounded, and of our entire dependence on that Almighty Being, from whose goodness and bounty they are derived, the United States in Congress assembled do recommend it to the several States, to set apart the second Thursday in December next, as a day of public thanksgiving, that all the people may then assemble to celebrate with one voice grateful hearts and united voices, the praises of their Supreme and all bountiful Benefactor, for his numberless favors and mercies. That he hath been pleased to conduct us in safety through all the perils and vicissitudes of the war; that he hath given us unanimity and resolution to adhere to our just rights; that he hath raised up a powerful ally to assist us in supporting them, and hath so far crowned our united efforts with success, that in the course of the present year, hostilities have ceased, and we are left in the undisputed possession of our liberties and independence, and of the fruits of our own land, and in the free participation of the treasures of the sea; that he hath prospered the labour of our husbandmen with plentiful harvests; and above all, that he hath been pleased to continue to us the light of the blessed gospel, and secured to us in the fullest extent the rights of conscience in faith and worship. And while our hearts overflow with gratitude, and our lips set forth the praises of our great Creator, that we also offer up fervent supplications, that it may please him to pardon all our offences, to give wisdom and unanimity to our public councils, to cement all our citizens in the bonds of affection, and to inspire them with an earnest regard for the national honor and interest, to enable them to improve the days of prosperity by every good work, and to be lovers of peace and tranquillity; that he may be pleased to bless us in our husbandry, our commerce and navigation; to smile upon our seminaries and means of education, to cause pure religion and virtue to flourish, to give peace to all nations, and to fill the world with his glory.

Done by the United States in Congress assembled, witness his Excellency Elias Boudinot, our President, this 18th day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, and of the sovereignty and independence of the United States of America the eighth.¹

[Note 1: 1 This report, in the writing of James Duane, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 24, folios 473--477.]

With regard to the second object viz, the troops who are on furlough, your Committee are of opinion that it will be best provided for by the following proclamation which they subjoin for the consideration of Congress to wit:

By the United States in Congress assembled.

From this proclamation, the President, George Washington, wrote the following.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas in the progress of an arduous and difficult war, the armies of the United States of America have eminently displayed every military and patriotic virtue, and are not less to be applauded for their invincible fortitude and magnanimity in the most trying scenes of adversity and distress, than for a series of heroic and illustrious achievements, which exalt them to a high rank among the most zealous and successful defenders of the rights and liberties of mankind. And whereas by the blessing of Divine Providence on our cause and our arms, the glorious period is arrived when our national independence and sovereignty are established, and we enjoy the prospect of a permanent and honorable peace: We therefore, the United States in Congress assembled, thus impressed with a lively sense of the distinguished merit and good conduct of the said armies, do give them the thanks of their country, for their long, eminent and faithful services.

And it is our will and pleasure, that such part of the federal armies as stands engaged to serve during the war, and as by our Acts of the 26 day of May, the 11 day of June, the 9 day August, and the 26 day of September last, were furloughed, shall, from and after the tenth third day of October November next, be absolutely discharged by virtue of this our proclamation, from the said service: and we do also declare, that the further services in the field, of the officers who are deranged and on furlough, in consequence of our aforesaid Acts, can now be dispensed with, and they have our full permission to retire from service, without being longer liable from their present engagements, to be called into command. And of such discharge and permission to retire from service respectively, all our officers, civil and military, and all others whom it may concern, are required to take notice, and to govern themselves accordingly.

Given under the seal of the United States in Congress assembled, witness his Excellency Elias Boudinot, our President in Congress, this eighteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, and of the sovereignty and independence of the United States of America the eighth.¹

[Note 1: 1 The original of this proclamation, signed by Boudinot and Thomson and with seal affixed, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, miscellaneous. The report, in the writing of James Duane, is in No. 24, folio 479. According to the indorsement, and the record in Committee Book No. 186, the report was read September 29, recommitted September 30, and reported again October 3. The proclamation was also entered in the manuscript Secret Journal, Foreign Affairs.]

October 3, 1789 – Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

G. Washington

Now that you have seen the truth, now that you know the truth, now that you can honestly give thanks for our nation – you also know the wonderful richness of our nation’s founding, and the great thanks you have in your heart, it is time to give. It is time for you, as 2 Corinthians 9:12 says, not only to rejoice with the saints, but to give also to all those in need. It is time for you to tell others, speak out, search out more truth, and relay that as well. We Christians are the only ones capable of seeing these truths, and therefore relaying them. Get on your knees, pray for forgiveness of your manifold sins, thank God, and implore others, especially non-believers, to do the same. Be a leader in our nation. It only takes the truth to do so.

[1] Except where annotated, all quotes are from the web page http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwjc.html which contains transcriptions of the Journals of the Continental Congress. All quotes are available on the Internet for everyone to investigate.

[2] Much of the mistake of man today is that he places his present historical perspective upon that which was in a different context and perspective. We would not ascribe the description of a road in our day to a road in first century Rome, or even 18^th century America. Do not, therefore ascribe verbiage of deism, secularism, and relativism today as equivalent to that of yesterday – it is not and never has been. Language evolves and changes, though our God stays the same. Rhetoric changes as time goes on; please remember that.

Candidate Tuesday #9 - The best of the rest

bennylee — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:55:32 +0000

It wouldn’t be an election without some colorful characters. Over the course of the last 2 months we have examined the major candidates who are hoping to replace the late Senator Edward Kennedy and represent Massachusetts in the Senate. However, we haven’t had the chance to meet some of the other folks who want to have their voices heard. That is, until now. Enjoy! Some have run for office before. Some are serious about winning. Some have an issue they are hoping to bring more attention to. Some are just crazy. But all are worth knowing about.

Who is your favorite? For me, I think it has to be the woman who claims to be the illegitimate child of Kathleen Kennedy and King George VI.

I should note that not all of these candidates collected enough signatures by the 11/24 deadline. But I just couldn’t let a silly thing like ballot eligibility keep me from introducing you to these fine folks.

Landrieu’s Pay-off: Ethical and Playing by the Rules

Jack Marshall — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:53:15 +0000

[Like you, I am thoroughly tired of seeing Claude Rains’ Capt. Renault quoted in these situations, b

Our Godless Constitution

willpen — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:16:17 +0000

In light of all the wingnuttery out there, most of it surrounding the Sarah Palin Express, I thought it would be a good idea to re-post this on the front page of my blog. Read it, enjoy it, and pass it around to every nutjob out there that thinks that this is a “Christian Nation”.

From “The Nation”

by Brooke Allen

February 3, 2005

It is hard to believe that George Bush has ever read the works of George Orwell, but he seems, somehow, to have grasped a few Orwellian precepts. The lesson the President has learned best–and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him–is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration’s current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent.

Our Constitution makes no mention whatever of God. The omission was too obvious to have been anything but deliberate, in spite of Alexander Hamilton’s flippant responses when asked about it: According to one account, he said that the new nation was not in need of “foreign aid”; according to another, he simply said “we forgot.” But as Hamilton’s biographer Ron Chernow points out, Hamilton never forgot anything important.

In the eighty-five essays that make up The Federalist, God is mentioned only twice (both times by Madison, who uses the word, as Gore Vidal has remarked, in the “only Heaven knows” sense). In the Declaration of Independence, He gets two brief nods: a reference to “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” and the famous line about men being “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” More blatant official references to a deity date from long after the founding period: “In God We Trust” did not appear on our coinage until the Civil War, and “under God” was introduced into the Pledge of Allegiance during the McCarthy hysteria in 1954 [see Elisabeth Sifton, "The Battle Over the Pledge," April 5, 2004].

In 1797 our government concluded a “Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary,” now known simply as the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:

As the Government of the United States…is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion–as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity of Musselmen–and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This document was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was then sent to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth pointing out that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required by the Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate’s history. There is no record of debate or dissent. The text of the treaty was printed in full in the Philadelphia Gazette and in two New York papers, but there were no screams of outrage, as one might expect today.

The Founding Fathers were not religious men, and they fought hard to erect, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, “a wall of separation between church and state.” John Adams opined that if they were not restrained by legal measures, Puritans–the fundamentalists of their day–would “whip and crop, and pillory and roast.” The historical epoch had afforded these men ample opportunity to observe the corruption to which established priesthoods were liable, as well as “the impious presumption of legislators and rulers,” as Jefferson wrote, “civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time.”

If we define a Christian as a person who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ, then it is safe to say that some of the key Founding Fathers were not Christians at all. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine were deists–that is, they believed in one Supreme Being but rejected revelation and all the supernatural elements of the Christian Church; the word of the Creator, they believed, could best be read in Nature. John Adams was a professed liberal Unitarian, but he, too, in his private correspondence seems more deist than Christian.

George Washington and James Madison also leaned toward deism, although neither took much interest in religious matters. Madison believed that “religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize.” He spoke of the “almost fifteen centuries” during which Christianity had been on trial: “What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.” If Washington mentioned the Almighty in a public address, as he occasionally did, he was careful to refer to Him not as “God” but with some nondenominational moniker like “Great Author” or “Almighty Being.” It is interesting to note that the Father of our Country spoke no words of a religious nature on his deathbed, although fully aware that he was dying, and did not ask for a man of God to be present; his last act was to take his own pulse, the consummate gesture of a creature of the age of scientific rationalism.

Tom Paine, a polemicist rather than a politician, could afford to be perfectly honest about his religious beliefs, which were baldly deist in the tradition of Voltaire: “I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life…. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.” This is how he opened The Age of Reason, his virulent attack on Christianity. In it he railed against the “obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness” of the Old Testament, “a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.” The New Testament is less brutalizing but more absurd, the story of Christ’s divine genesis a “fable, which for absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by any thing that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients.” He held the idea of the Resurrection in especial ridicule: Indeed, “the wretched contrivance with which this latter part is told, exceeds every thing that went before it.” Paine was careful to contrast the tortuous twists of theology with the pure clarity of deism. “The true deist has but one Deity; and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in every thing moral, scientifical, and mechanical.”

Paine’s rhetoric was so fervent that he was inevitably branded an atheist. Men like Franklin, Adams and Jefferson could not risk being tarred with that brush, and in fact Jefferson got into a good deal of trouble for continuing his friendship with Paine and entertaining him at Monticello. These statesmen had to be far more circumspect than the turbulent Paine, yet if we examine their beliefs it is all but impossible to see just how theirs differed from his.

Franklin was the oldest of the Founding Fathers. He was also the most worldly and sophisticated, and was well aware of the Machiavellian principle that if one aspires to influence the masses, one must at least profess religious sentiments. By his own definition he was a deist, although one French acquaintance claimed that “our free-thinkers have adroitly sounded him on his religion, and they maintain that they have discovered he is one of their own, that is that he has none at all.” If he did have a religion, it was strictly utilitarian: As his biographer Gordon Wood has said, “He praised religion for whatever moral effects it had, but for little else.” Divine revelation, Franklin freely admitted, had “no weight with me,” and the covenant of grace seemed “unintelligible” and “not beneficial.” As for the pious hypocrites who have ever controlled nations, “A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then destroy them under color of law”–a comment we should carefully consider at this turning point in the history of our Republic.

Here is Franklin’s considered summary of his own beliefs, in response to a query by Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale. He wrote it just six weeks before his death at the age of 84.

Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any particular marks of his displeasure.

Jefferson thoroughly agreed with Franklin on the corruptions the teachings of Jesus had undergone. “The metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniacal ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams of Plato, have so loaded [Christianity] with absurdities and incomprehensibilities” that it was almost impossible to recapture “its native simplicity and purity.” Like Paine, Jefferson felt that the miracles claimed by the New Testament put an intolerable strain on credulity. “The day will come,” he predicted (wrongly, so far), “when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” The Revelation of St. John he dismissed as “the ravings of a maniac.”

Jefferson edited his own version of the New Testament, “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” in which he carefully deleted all the miraculous passages from the works of the Evangelists. He intended it, he said, as “a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.” This was clearly a defense against his many enemies, who hoped to blacken his reputation by comparing him with the vile atheist Paine. His biographer Joseph Ellis is undoubtedly correct, though, in seeing disingenuousness here: “If [Jefferson] had been completely scrupulous, he would have described himself as a deist who admired the ethical teachings of Jesus as a man rather than as the son of God. (In modern-day parlance, he was a secular humanist.)” In short, not a Christian at all.

The three accomplishments Jefferson was proudest of–those that he requested be put on his tombstone–were the founding of the University of Virginia and the authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. The latter was a truly radical document that would eventually influence the separation of church and state in the US Constitution; when it was passed by the Virginia legislature in 1786, Jefferson rejoiced that there was finally “freedom for the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammeden, the Hindu and infidel of every denomination”–note his respect, still unusual today, for the sensibilities of the “infidel.” The University of Virginia was notable among early-American seats of higher education in that it had no religious affiliation whatever. Jefferson even banned the teaching of theology at the school.

If we were to speak of Jefferson in modern political categories, we would have to admit that he was a pure libertarian, in religious as in other matters. His real commitment (or lack thereof) to the teachings of Jesus Christ is plain from a famous throwaway comment he made: “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” This raised plenty of hackles when it got about, and Jefferson had to go to some pains to restore his reputation as a good Christian. But one can only conclude, with Ellis, that he was no Christian at all.

John Adams, though no more religious than Jefferson, had inherited the fatalistic mindset of the Puritan culture in which he had grown up. He personally endorsed the Enlightenment commitment to Reason but did not share Jefferson’s optimism about its future, writing to him, “I wish that Superstition in Religion exciting Superstition in Polliticks…may never blow up all your benevolent and phylanthropic Lucubrations,” but that “the History of all Ages is against you.” As an old man he observed, “Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!’” Speaking ex cathedra, as a relic of the founding generation, he expressed his admiration for the Roman system whereby every man could worship whom, what and how he pleased. When his young listeners objected that this was paganism, Adams replied that it was indeed, and laughed.

In their fascinating and eloquent valetudinarian correspondence, Adams and Jefferson had a great deal to say about religion. Pressed by Jefferson to define his personal creed, Adams replied that it was “contained in four short words, ‘Be just and good.’” Jefferson replied, “The result of our fifty or sixty years of religious reading, in the four words, ‘Be just and good,’ is that in which all our inquiries must end; as the riddles of all priesthoods end in four more, ‘ubi panis, ibi deus.’ What all agree in, is probably right. What no two agree in, most probably wrong.”

This was a clear reference to Voltaire’s Reflections on Religion. As Voltaire put it:

There are no sects in geometry. One does not speak of a Euclidean, an Archimedean. When the truth is evident, it is impossible for parties and factions to arise…. Well, to what dogma do all minds agree? To the worship of a God, and to honesty. All the philosophers of the world who have had a religion have said in all ages: “There is a God, and one must be just.” There, then, is the universal religion established in all ages and throughout mankind. The point in which they all agree is therefore true, and the systems through which they differ are therefore false.

Of course all these men knew, as all modern presidential candidates know, that to admit to theological skepticism is political suicide. During Jefferson’s presidency a friend observed him on his way to church, carrying a large prayer book. “You going to church, Mr. J,” remarked the friend. “You do not believe a word in it.” Jefferson didn’t exactly deny the charge. “Sir,” he replied, “no nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example. Good morning Sir.”

Like Jefferson, every recent President has understood the necessity of at least paying lip service to the piety of most American voters. All of our leaders, Democrat and Republican, have attended church, and have made very sure they are seen to do so. But there is a difference between offering this gesture of respect for majority beliefs and manipulating and pandering to the bigotry, prejudice and millennial fantasies of Christian extremists. Though for public consumption the Founding Fathers identified themselves as Christians, they were, at least by today’s standards, remarkably honest about their misgivings when it came to theological doctrine, and religion in general came very low on the list of their concerns and priorities–always excepting, that is, their determination to keep the new nation free from bondage to its rule.

Tuesday's Top Tune - A short ride...

matteilar — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:38:59 +0000

…in a fast machine by John Adams.

Operation: Learn About The Signers, Benjamin Rush

slaterradio — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:14:10 +0000

Part I of said Operation, Benjamin Rush:

Ye men of sense and virtue—Ye advocates for American Liberty, rouse up and espouse the cause of humanity and general liberty. Bear a testimony against a vice which degrades human nature and dissolves the universal ties of benevolence which should connect all the children of men together in one family. The plant of liberty is of so tender a nature that it cannot long thrive in the neighborhood of slavery. Remember all the eyes of Europe are fixed upon you, to preserve an asylum for freedom in this country, after the last pillars of it are fallen in every other quarter of the globe.

Benjamin Rush, “An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America, upon Slave-Keeping,” 1773

The American Revolution was not a common event. Its effects and consequences have already been awful over a great part of the globe. And when and where are they to cease? But what do we mean be the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; . . . This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.

John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, 13 February 1818

Thanksgiving

littleguyintheeye — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:31:39 +0000

History According to Wikipedia:

In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. It is the only other country outside of the United States that officially observes the day as a holiday.

Thanksgiving involves a group of people commonly known as the Pilgrims.

They were a dissenting religious group considered to be outside of mainstream “Christianity”. The Pilgrims felt that the only way freely to practice their religion was to physically separate themselves from the Church of England that had persecuted them*. First to flee persecution, these “Separatists,” moved to the English Midlands. Then they went to Amsterdam in 1607. In 1609, they moved to the more religiously tolerant Netherlands. But they decided that this would not do. Finally, they began their voyage to America in 1620. It took months to cross the sea and they lost many during that voyage as well as after coming to America.. In spite of all their sufferings and the death of half of their company, in October 1621, the Pilgrims celebrated their first harvest. In 1863, US President Lincoln made a proclamation that ultimately led to Thanksgiving becoming a US holiday.

*Was this a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy?

Deu 29:24 “And all nations shall say, ‘Why has יהוה done so to this land? What does the heat of this great displeasure mean?’
Deu 29:25 “And it shall be said, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of יהוה Elohim of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Mitsrayim.
Deu 29:26 ‘And they went and served other mighty ones and bowed themselves to them, mighty ones that they did not know and that He had not given to them,
Deu 29:27 therefore the displeasure of יהוה burned against this land, to bring on it every curse that is written in this book.
Deu 29:28 ‘And יהוה uprooted them from their land in displeasure, and in wrath, and in great rage, and cast them into another land**, as it is today.’
The Puritans and most Americans of the 1600’s believed the above Scripture applied to them. They believed they were Israelites who were being led to a new promised land by the hand of Providence.

**Eretz acharet…America was called the ‘New World’ which could be translated roughly from this Hebrew phrase.
2Sa 7:10 “And I shall appoint a place for My people Yisra’ĕl, and shall plant them, and they shall dwell in a place of their own and no longer be afraid, neither shall the children of wickedness oppress them again, as at the first,
This prophecy was told to David while Yisrael was dwelling safely in the Land. Ultimately, this is a prophecy of the Kingdom of Messiah but a partial fulfillment may be America.

2 Esdras 13:34 And an innumerable multitude shall be gathered together, as thou sawest them, willing to come, and to overcome him by fighting.
35 But he {Messiah} shall stand upon the top of the mount Sion.
36 And Sion shall come, and shall be shewed to all men, being prepared and builded, like as thou sawest the hill graven without hands.
37 And this my Son shall rebuke the wicked inventions of those nations, which for their wicked life are fallen into the tempest;
38 And shall lay before them their evil thoughts, and the torments wherewith they shall begin to be tormented, which are like unto a flame: and he shall destroy them without labour by the law which is like unto me.
39 And whereas thou sawest that he gathered another peaceable multitude unto him;
40 Those are the ten tribes, which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea the king, whom Salmanasar the king of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so came they into another land.
41 But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a further country, where never mankind dwelt,
42 That they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land.
Here we see an amazing prophecy of the 10 tribes, which are represented by the Christians that left Europe to travel to the New World. There is much historical evidence that the 10 tribes migrated to Europe and later accepted the Gospel. It is these ‘lost tribes’ that purposed to go to a land where mankind had not known to keep the Torah that they didn’t keep while in the Land of Yisrael.

The Vine in the wilderness

Isa 5:1 Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:
Isa 5:2 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
Isa 5:3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.
Isa 5:4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
Isa 5:5 And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:
Isa 5:6 And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
Isa 5:7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

Mat 21:33 Hear another parable: There was a certain man, a house master, who planted a vineyard and placed a hedge around it; and he dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. And he rented it to vinedressers and left the country. Isa. 5:1, 2
Mat 21:34 And when the season of the fruits came, he sent his slaves to the vinedressers to receive his fruits.
Mat 21:35 And the vinedressers, taking his slaves, they beat this one, and they killed one, and they stoned another.
Mat 21:36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first. And they did the same to them.
Mat 21:37 And at last he sent his son to them, saying, They will respect my son.
Mat 21:38 But seeing the son, the vinedressers said among themselves, This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and possess his inheritance.
Mat 21:39 And taking him, they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Mat 21:40 Therefore, when the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?
Mat 21:41 They said to Him, Bad men! He will miserably destroy them, and he will rent out the vineyard to other vinedressers who will give to him the fruits in their seasons.
Mat 21:42 Jesus said to them, Did you never read in the Scriptures, “A Stone which the builders rejected, this One became the Head of the Corner? This was from the Lord, and it is a wonder in our eyes?” Psalm 118:22, 23
Mat 21:43 Because of this I say to you, The kingdom of God will be taken from you, and it will be given to a nation producing the fruits of it.*

*This is the role that America was/is to fulfill. No single nation has spread the Gospel more than the USA/America. The problem is that when believers fled from Europe to escape religious persecution, there was also those from the side of darkness that came along with them to escape that same religious intolerance. There has always been this power struggle in this country between those who wish to worship YHWH according to the dictates of their hearts versus those who hate Him and wish to bring about a new world of antichrist. click here

The date and location of the first Thanksgiving celebration is a topic of modest contention. Though the earliest attested Thanksgiving celebration was on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida

The traditional “first Thanksgiving” is venerated as having occurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621. The Plymouth celebration occurred early in the history in one of the original thirteen colonies that became the United States, and this celebration became an important part of the American myth by the 1800s.

Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day, presently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, has been an annual tradition in the United States since 1863. It did not become a federal holiday until 1941. Thanksgiving was historically a religious observation to give thanks to God,[1] and is still celebrated as such by many families, but it is now also considered a secular holiday as well.
“Thanksgiving Day”. Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/590003/Thanksgiving-Day. Retrieved 2009-11-03.

The First Thanksgiving was celebrated to give thanks to God and the Native Americans for helping the pilgrims survive the brutal winter. Although half of the pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower had already died, many more would have had it not been for the native Americans teaching the pilgrims to harvest foods. The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three whole days providing enough food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Indians. The traditional Thanksgiving menu often features turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. Americans may eat these foods on modern day Thanksgiving, but the first feast did not consist of these items. On the first feast turkey was any type of fowl that the pilgrims hunted. Pumpkin pie wasn’t on the menu because there were no ovens for baking, but they did have boiled pumpkin. Cranberries weren’t introduced at this time. Due to the diminishing supply of flour there was no bread of any kind. The foods included in the first feast included duck, geese, venison, fish, lobster, clams, swan, berries, dried fruit, pumpkin, squash, and many more vegetables.

Squanto, a Patuxet Native American who resided with the Wampanoag tribe, taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn and served as an interpreter for them (Squanto had learned English as a slave in Europe and travels in England). The Pilgrims set apart a day to celebrate at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest, in 1621. At the time, this was not regarded as a Thanksgiving observance; harvest festivals existed in English and Wampanoag tradition alike. Several colonists gave personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Pilgrims, most of whom were Separatists, are not to be confused with Puritans who established their own Massachusetts Bay Colony nearby (current day Boston) in 1628 and had very different religious beliefs*.

There were two different camps of believers that came out of the Protestant reformation. The Pilgrims were considered ‘Separatists’ who did not seek to reform the church but to separate from it. The Puritans sought to ‘purify’ church and state.

The Pilgrims did not hold a true Thanksgiving until 1623, after a switch from communal farming to privatized farming finally resulted in a larger harvest.[9] Irregular Thanksgivings continued after favorable events and days of fasting after unfavorable ones. In the Plymouth tradition, a thanksgiving day was a church observance, rather than a feast day.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony (consisting mainly of Puritan Christians) celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time in 1630, and frequently thereafter until about 1680, when it became an annual festival in that colony; and Connecticut as early as 1639 and annually after 1647, except in 1675. The Dutch in New Netherland appointed a day for giving thanks in 1644 and occasionally thereafter.

Charlestown, Massachusetts held the first recorded Thanksgiving observance June 29, 1671 by proclamation of the town’s governing council.

During the 18th century individual colonies commonly observed days of thanksgiving throughout each year. We might not recognize a traditional Thanksgiving Day from that period, as it was not a day marked by plentiful food and drink as is today’s custom, but rather a day set aside for prayer and fasting.

Later in the 1700s individual colonies would periodically designate a day of thanksgiving in honor of a military victory, an adoption of a state constitution or an exceptionally bountiful crop. Such a Thanksgiving Day celebration was held in December 1777 by the colonies nationwide, commemorating the surrender of British General Burgoyne at Saratoga.

In the middle of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, prompted by a series of editorials written by Sarah Josepha Hale,[3] proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the final Thursday in November 1863:

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.”

Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863.

Interestingly, Thanksgiving was proclaimed as a national holiday after the north and south came back together as one nation. The Scriptures speak of the northern tribes and the southern tribes coming back together as a time of Thanksgiving as well.

Jer 30:18 So says YHWH, Behold I will turn the captivity of Jacob’s tents and will have mercy on his dwelling places. And the city shall be built on her ruin heap; and the fortress shall remain on its own ordinance.
Jer 30:19 And out of them shall come thanksgiving and the voice of those who are merry. And I will multiply them, and they shall not be few. I also will honor them, and they shall not be small.

Hodu – Turkey

In excavations near Salem, Massachuseets an old Hebrew manuscript was found that sheds light on why turkey is eaten on Thanksgiving.
b’chag hahodaya
On holiday/feast Thanksgiving

Hodu sheain atem
Give thanks that not you are

tarngol hahodu asher lfaneikhem
the fowl indian/turkey that is before you

This manuscript was called Haggada Shel Hodaya…similar to Haggada shel Pesach. At Passover it is said:

leshana ha’ba’a b’yerushalayim

Next year in Jerusalem

Haggada Shel Hodaya instructs Thanksgiving day meal be concluded with:

Hodu=give thanks

India = Hodu
The other name for turkey in those days was Indian chicken because Columbus thought he was in India when he saw turkeys for the first time.

The Hebrew word for Turkey is

Benjamin Franklin proposed that turkey be the national bird of the USA arguing that the turkey was more honest, honorable, diligent and smarter than the bald eagle.

Puritans, Yisrael & The Torah

Marvin Wilson’s book, Our Father Abraham
explains (pp. 127-128):

During the period of the Protestant Reformation (16th century), some signs of the re-Judaization of the Christian faith began to surface, as certain Hebrew categories were rediscovered. The Reformers put great stress on sola scriptura (Scripture as the sole and final authority of the Christian). The consequent de-emphasis on tradition brought with it a return to the biblical roots. Accordingly, during the two centuries following the Reformation, several groups recognized the importance of once again emphasizing the Hebraic heritage of the Church. Among these people were the Puritans who founded Pilgrim America, and the leaders who pioneered American education. We shall comment briefly on the first of these groups before concentrating on the second.

The Puritans came to America deeply rooted in the Hebraic tradition. Most bore Hebrew names. The Pilgrim fathers considered themselves as the children of Israel fleeing “Egypt” (England), crossing the “Red Sea” (the Atlantic Ocean), and emerging from this “Exodus” to their own “promised land” (New England). The Pilgrims thought of themselves as “all the children of Abraham” and, thus, under the covenant of Abraham. (Feingold p. 46.)

The President of Yale College used these words before the Governor and General Assembly of the state of Connecticut in 1783: “Their influence on American society was not soon forgotten: more than a century and a half after the first Puritan settlers reached New England, the American people were referred to in a State Assembly as ‘God’s American Israel.’” (Feldman p. 5)

The seeds of religious liberty for the American Church did not come from New England leaders such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson-as noble as they and others were. Rather, it came from the Hebrews themselves, whose sacred writings inspired the Puritans. Accordingly, many of the Puritans in seventeenth-century England were learned Hebraists. William Bradford (1590-1657), prominent early American and Governor of Plymouth Colony for more than three decades, maintained an intense interest in Hebrew. Bradford stated that he studied Hebrew so that when he died he might be able to speak in the “most ancient language, the Holy Tongue in which God and, the angels, spake.” Cotton Mather (1663-1728), a well-known Puritan minister and scholar from Massachusetts, had a similar deep respect for the Hebrew language. Concerning its importance, Mather once observed, “I promise that those who
spend as much time morning and evening in Hebrew studies as they do in smoking tobacco, would quickly make excellent progress in the language.”click here (Rosovsky)

So popular was the Hebrew Language in the late 16th and early 17th centuries that several students at Yale delivered their commencement orations in Hebrew. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Pennsylvania taught courses in Hebrew—all the more remarkable because no university in England at the time offered it.

Many of the population, including a significant number of the Founding Fathers of America, were products of these American universities—for example, Thomas Jefferson attended William and Mary, James Madison Princeton, Alexander Hamilton King’s College (i.e. Columbia). Thus, we can be sure that a majority of these political leaders were not only well acquainted with the contents of both the New and Old Testaments but also had some working knowledge of Hebrew. Notes Abraham Katsh in The Biblical Heritage of American Democracy (p. 70):

At the time of the American Revolution, the interest in the knowledge of Hebrew was so widespread as to allow the circulation of the story that “certain members of Congress proposed that the use of English be formally prohibited in the United States, and Hebrew substituted for it.”

Many of the earliest “pilgrims” who settled the “New England” of America in early 17th century were Puritan refugees escaping religious persecutions in Europe.

Over the next century, America continued to be not only the land of opportunity for many people seeking a better life but also the land of religious tolerance. By the middle 1700’s, the east coast of America was settled by a virtual “Who’s Who” of Christian splinter sects from all over Europe. Among them were:

* the Puritans, whom we already know so well
* the Quakers, an extremist Puritan sect who did not believe in ministers and for whom a Society of Friends meeting together was good enough to bring down the Holy Spirit
* Calvinists, who early on had challenged the Catholic belief that the bread and wine became the body and blood of Jesus in the celebration of the mass
* the Huguenots, or French Calvinists
* the Moravians, followers of John Hus, the protestant martyr from Bohemia
* the Mennonites, a Swiss sect of Anabaptists who rejected infant baptism
* the Amish, the most stringent of the Mennonites

These were just some of the numerous groups who arrived in America in search of religious freedom.

The majority of the earliest settlers were, of course, Puritans. Beginning with the Mayflower, over the next twenty years, 16,000 Puritans migrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and many more settled in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Like their cousins back in England, these American Puritans strongly identified with both the historical traditions and customs of the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament. They viewed their emigration from England as a virtual re-enactment of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. To them, England was Egypt, the king was Pharaoh, the Atlantic Ocean was the Red Sea, America was the Land of Israel, and the Indians were the ancient Canaanites. They were the new Israelites, entering into a new covenant with God in a new Promised Land. Thanksgiving—first celebrated in 1621, a year after the Mayflower landed—was initially conceived as day parallel to the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur; it was to be a day of fasting, introspection and prayer.

After that first harvest was completed by the Plymouth colonists, Gov. William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and prayer, shared by all the colonists and neighboring Indians. In 1623 a day of fasting and prayer during a period of drought was changed to one of thanksgiving because the rain came during the prayers. Gradually the custom prevailed in New England of annually celebrating thanksgiving after the harvest. During the American Revolution a yearly day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress. In 1817 New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom, and by the middle of the 19th century many other states had done the same. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln appointed a day of thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November, which he may have correlated it with the November 21, 1621, anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod.

Other believe that the Pilgrims were celebrating Sukkot

http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday5.htm

Many Americans, upon seeing a decorated sukkah for the first time, remark on how much the sukkah (and the holiday generally) reminds them of Thanksgiving. This may not be entirely coincidental: I was taught that our American pilgrims, who originated the Thanksgiving holiday, borrowed the idea from Sukkot. The pilgrims were deeply religious people. When they were trying to find a way to express their thanks for their survival and for the harvest, they looked to the Bible for an appropriate way of celebrating and found Sukkot. This is not the standard story taught in public schools today (that a Thanksgiving holiday is an English custom that the Pilgrims brought over), but the Sukkot explanation of Thanksgiving fits better with the meticulous research of Mayflower historian Caleb Johnson, who believes that the original Thanksgiving was a harvest festival (as is Sukkot), that it was observed in October (as Sukkot usually is), and that Pilgrims would not have celebrated a holiday that was not in the Bible (but Sukkot is in the Bible). Although Mr. Johnson claims that the first Thanksgiving was “not a religious holiday or observance,” he apparently means this in a Christian sense, because he goes on to say that the first Thanksgiving was instead “a harvest festival that included feasts, sporting events, and other activities,” concepts very much in keeping with the Jewish religious observance of Sukkot.

Gabriel Sivan, in The Bible and Civilization, (p. 236) observes:

“No Christian community in history identified more with the People of the Book than did the early settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who believed their own lives to be a literal reenactment of the Biblical drama of the Hebrew nation. They themselves were the children of Israel; America was their Promised Land; the Atlantic Ocean their Red Sea; the Kings of England were the Egyptian pharaohs; the American Indians the Canaanites; the pact of the Plymouth Rock was God’s holy Covenant; and the ordinances by which they lived were the Divine Law. Like the Huguenots and other Protestant victims of Old World oppression, these émigré Puritans dramatized their own situation as the righteous remnant of the Church corrupted by the “Babylonian woe,” and saw themselves as instruments of Divine Providence, a people chosen to build their new commonwealth on the Covenant entered into at Mount Sinai.”

The earliest legislation of the colonies of New England was all determined by Scripture. At the first assembly of New Haven in 1639, John Davenport clearly stated the primacy of the Bible as the legal and moral foundation of the colony:

Scriptures do hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of all men in all duties which they are to perform to God and men as well as in the government of families and commonwealth as in matters of the Church … the Word of God shall be the only rule to be attended unto in organizing the affairs of government in this plantation. (See Abraham I Katsch, The Biblical Heritage of American Democracy, p. 97)

Subsequently, the New Haven legislators adopted a legal code—the Code of 1655—which contained some 79 statutes, half of which contained Biblical references, virtually all from the Hebrew Bible. The Plymouth Colony had a similar law code as did the Massachusetts assembly, which, in 1641—after an exhortation by Reverend John Cotton who presented the legislators with a copy of Moses, His Judicials—adopted the so-called “Capitall Lawes of New England” based almost entirely on Mosaic law.

Ezra Stiles

The following excerpts from Pastor Ezra Stiles’ sermon capture the vision which many of America’s great churchmen had for this planting of God’s vine in the wilderness:

… I have assumed the text only as introductory to a discourse upon the political welfare of God’s American Israel, and as allusively prophetic of the future prosperity and splendor of the United States.
Pastor Ezra Stiles, D.D., “The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor,” election sermon on May 8, 1783, quoted in John Wingate Thornton in The Pulpit of the American Revolution: Political Sermons of the Period of 1776, 1860 ed., reprinted (Boston, MA: Da Capo Press, 1970) p. 403.

Already does the new constellation of the United States begin to realize this glory. It has already risen to an acknowledged sovereignty among the republics and kingdoms of the world. And we have reason to hope, and, I believe, to expect, that God has still greater blessings in store for this vine which his own right hand hath planted, to make us high among the nations in praise, and in name, and in honor. The reasons are very numerous, weighty, and conclusive. Stiles, pp. 438-439

Our degree of population is such as to give us reason to expect that this will become a great people…. This will be a great, a very great nation…. Should this prove a future fact, how applicable would be the text, when the Lord shall have made his American Israel high above all nations which he has made, in numbers, and in praise, and in name, and in honor! Stiles, Stiles pp. 439-440

Any possible ambiguity in Pastor Stiles’ sermon is cleared in the following declaration by Pastor W. B. Record:
LOOKING WESTWARD…

Standing on the western shores of Europe 500 years ago, you could not see nor visualize a great continent that lay to the west; only what seemed to be an endless stretch of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet there was a great continent out there to the west.

Now may I ask you, “Did Jesus Christ know of this North American Continent?” Your only answer could be, “Yes, of course He did.”

Let me ask another question, “Did Jesus Christ know that a great nation would be established here?” Of course He did!

Still another question, please -”Did Jesus Christ know this great nation (yet to be born) would be Christian from its beginning?” Of course He knew that, for He Himself is the source and Author of the faith we call “Christian.”

Now one more question, “Is it possible that this great nation, known to Jesus, was never mentioned, indicated, or foretold in the Bible?”

Consider this, “I will make of thee a great nation” (Gen. 12:2). “The kingdom of God shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matt. 21:43). Where is this great nation, which is bringing forth the fruits of the kingdom of God? The answer is quite obvious: you are living in it. See to it that you make your calling and election sure. Pastor W.B. Record, Truth & Liberty Magazine, September 1964

In The Beginnings of New England, American historian and philosopher John Fiske wrote:

The men who undertook this work were not at all free from self consciousness. They believed that they were doing a wonderful thing. They felt themselves to be instruments in accomplishing a kind of “manifest destiny.” Their exodus was that of a chosen people who were at length to lay the everlasting foundations of God’s kingdom upon earth. Such opinions … took a strong colour from their assiduous study of the Old Testament…. In every propitious event they saw a special providence, an act of divine intervention…. This steadfast faith in an unseen ruler and guide was to them a “pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. John Fiske (Edmund Fisk Green), The Beginnings of New England (Cambridge, MA: H.O. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Liberty Press, 1889) vol. 1, p. 308

Samuel Eliot Morison commented on Pastor Cotton’s vision of this New Canaan land:

[Pastor John] Cotton’s sermon was of a nature to inspire these new children of Israel with the belief that they were the Lord’s chosen people; destined, if they kept the covenant with Him, to people and fructify this new Canaan in the western wilderness.Samuel Eliot Morison, Colonial America (1887) p. 25.

John Cotton

Pastor John Cotton, D.D., sermon to fellow Puritans departing for America in 1630, God’s Promise to His Plantation (London, UK: William Jones, 1630) pp. 13-14.
Was it just by coincidence or was it by the providence of God that in 1630 a young Puritan minister by the name of John Cotton chose 2 Samuel 7: 10 as his text for a farewell message to a boatload of fellow Puritans departing for America

2Sa 7:10 “And I shall appoint a place for My people Yisra’ĕl, and shall plant them, and they shall dwell in a place of their own and no longer be afraid, neither shall the children of wickedness oppress them again, as at the first,

In his book New England’s Memorial, Nathaniel Morton demonstrated how perfectly America’s early settlers fulfilled this passage from Isaiah:

That especially the seed of Abraham his servant, and the children of Jacob his chosen, may remember his marvelous works (Psal. 105.5-6.) in the beginning and progress of the planting of New England, his wonders, and the judgements of his mouth; how that God brought a vine into this wilderness; that he cast out the heathen and planted it; and he also made room for it, and he caused it to take deep root, and it filled the land; so that it hath sent forth its boughs to the sea, and its branches to the river. (Psal. 80.8-9.) And not only so, but also that He hath guided his people by his strength to his holy habitation, and planted them in the mountain of his inheritance, (Exod. 15.13.) in respect of precious gospel-enjoyments. So that we may not only look back to former experiences of God’s goodness to our predecessors, (though many years before) and so have our faith strengthened in the mercies of God for our times….Nathaniel Morton, New England’s Memorial (Cambridge, MA: S.G. and M.J. for John Usher, 1669), reproduced with extracts from other writers (Boston, MA: Congregational Board of Publication, 1854) pp. 13-14.

Cotton Mather

In Magnalia Christi Americana; or, The Ecclesiastical History of New England, Pastor Cotton Mather, writing of the dangers facing the Puritans seeking asylum beyond the seas, pictured America as a desolate wilderness:

… the God of Heaven served as it were a summons upon the spirits of his people in the English nation; stirring up the spirits of thousands which never saw the faces of each other, with a most unanimous inclination to leave all the pleasant accommodations of their native country, and go over a terrible ocean, into a more terrible desert, for the pure enjoyment of all his ordinances.
Pastor Cotton Mather, D.D., Magnalia Christi Americana: or, The Ecclesiastical History of New-England, 1702 and subsequent editions reprint. (New York, NY: Russell & Russell, 1967) vol. 1, p. 69.
Being happily arrived at New-England, our new planters found the difficulties of a rough and hard wilderness presently assaulting them… Mather, vol. 1, p. 77.

Never was any plantation brought unto such a considerableness, in a space of time so inconsiderable! … an howling wilderness in a few years became a pleasant land, accommodated with the necessaries, yea, and the conveniences of humane life Mather, vol. 1, p. 80

In his foreword “An Attestation to this Church-History of New England” in the above mentioned book, John Higginson also depicted America as an empty wilderness:

It hath been deservedly esteemed one of the great and wonderful Works of God in this last age, that the Lord stirred up the spirits of so many thousands of his [Celto-Saxon] servants, to leave the pleasant land of England, the land of their nativity, and to transport themselves, and families, over the ocean sea, into a desert land in America, at the distance of a thousand leagues from their own country; and this, merely on the account of pure and undefiled Religion [Christianity], not knowing how they should have their daily bread, but trusting in God for that, in the way of seeking first the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof: And that the Lord was pleased to grant such a gracious presence of his with them, and such a blessing upon their undertakings, that within a few years a wilderness was subdued before them, and so many Colonies planted, Towns erected, and Churches settled, wherein the true and living God in Christ Jesus, is worshipped and served, in a place where, time out of mind, had been nothing before but Heathenism, Idolatry, and Devilworship; and that the Lord has added so many of the blessings of Heaven and earth for the comfortable subsistence of his people in these ends of the earth. Surely of this work, and of this time, it shall be said, what hath God wrought? And, this is the Lord’s doings, it is marvellous in our eyes! Even so (O Lord) didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name!

John Higginson, “An Attestation to This Church-History of New-England,” foreword to Pastor Cotton Mather, D.D., Magnalia Christi Americana: or, The Ecclesiastical History of New-England, 1702 and subsequent editions reprint. (New York, NY: Russell & Russell, 1967) vol. 1, p. 13.

Pastor William Gordon was another voice of the early American church. He not only preached concerning what this land had been, but he also preached what it was becoming in light of Isaiah 35:1-2:

They came from a well-cultured kingdom to a savage people and a wild country, enough to discourage the stoutest. However, they ventured to take up their abode in it…. The face of the colony is not less changed for the better since first settled than what is set forth in the language of Isaiah’s prophecy: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it; the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God. Pastor William Gordon, discourse preached on December 15, 1774, quoted in John Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution: Political Sermons of the Period of 1776, 1860 ed., reprint. (Boston, MA: Da Capo Press, 1970) p. 210-211.

Pastor Emry contrasted the new promised land with the old promised land:

A look at the United States, and Canada, reveals a different picture. Here we find the only land on the face of this earth that is truly a land of unwalled villages. Our Christian ancestors left castles, walls, and moats in the “old world” when they came to the “New World,” and our cities are without walls. God who knows the end from the beginning, can be expected to be accurate in His word.
Emry, p. 10.

[Pastor] John Norton, in the Election Sermon of 1661, said that theycame “into this wilderness to live under the order of the gospel”; “that our polity [government] may be a gospel polity, and may be compleat according to the Scriptures, answering fully the Word of God: this is the work of our generation, and the very work we engaged for into this wilderness; this is the scope and end of it … written upon the forehead of New England … the compleat walking in the faith of the gospel, according to the order of the gospel.”

The venerable [John] Higginson, of Salem, in his Election Sermon of 1663, stated the point with great fulness, as follows: “It concerneth New England always to remember that they are originally a plantation religious, not a plantation of trade…. Let merchants … remember this:

that worldly gain was not the end and design of the people of New England, but religion….”

In the [Harvard University] Election Sermon of 1677 … Increase Mather uttered these words: “It was love to God and to Jesus Christ which brought our fathers into this wilderness…. There never was a generation that did so perfectly shake off the dust of Babylon, both as to ecclesiastical and civil constitutions, as the first generation of Christians that came into this land for the gospel’s sake.”

[Pastor] William Hubbard, the historian, in a Fast-day sermon, preached June 24, 1682, declared that the fathers “came not hither for the world, or for land, or for traffic; but for religion, and for liberty of conscience in the worship of God, which was their only design.”

The historical fact was stated by President [Ezra] Stiles, of Yale College, in 1783: “It is certain that civil dominion was but the second motive, religion the primary one, with our ancestors, in coming hither and settling this land. It was not so much their design to establish religion for the benefit of the state, as civil government for the benefit of religion, and as subservient, and even necessary, towards the peaceable enjoyment and unmolested exercise of religion – of that religion for which they fled to these ends of the earth.” John Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution: Political Sermons of the Period of 1776, 1860 ed., reprint. (Boston, MA: Da Capo Press, 1970) pp. xviii-xix.

I WRITE the WONDERS of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION , flying from the depravations of Europe, to the American Strand; and, assisted by the Holy Author of that Religion, I do with all conscience of Truth, required therein by Him, who is the Truth itself, report the wonderful displays of His infinite Power, Wisdom, Goodness, and Faithfulness, wherewith His Divine Providence hath irradiated an Indian Wilderness. Pastor Cotton Mather, D.D., Magnalia Christi Americana: or, The Ecclesiastical History of New-England, 1702, subsequent ed. reprint. (New York, NY: Russell & Russell, 1967), vol. 1, p. 25.

The people in the fleet that arrived at New-England, in the year 1630, left the fleet almost, as the family of Noah did the ark, having a whole world before them to be peopled … but where-ever they sat down, they were so mindful of their errand into the wilderness, that still one of their first works was to gather a church into the covenant and order of the gospel. Mather, vol. 1, pp. 78-89

In the year 1643, after divers essays made in some former years, the several colonies of New-England became in fact, as well as name, UNITED COLONIES. And an instrument was formed, wherein having declared, “That we all came into these parts of America with the same end and aim -namely, to advance the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and enjoy the liberties of the gospel with purity and peace….” Mather, vol. 1, p. 160.

The ministers and Christians by whom New-England was first planted, were a chosen company of men; picked out of, perhaps, all the counties in England, and this by no human contrivance, but by a strange work of God upon the spirits of men that were, no ways, acquainted with one another, inspiring them, as one man, to secede into a wilderness … a reasonable expression once used by that eminent … lieutenant-governor of New-England … “God sifted three nations [England, Scotland,and Ireland], that he might bring choice grain into this wilderness.”

The design of these refugees, thus carried into the [North American] wilderness, was, that they might there “sacrifice unto the Lord their God:” it was, that they might maintain the power of godliness and practice the evangelical worship of our Lord Jesus Christ, in all the parts of it ….Mather, vol. 1, p. 240

In “An Attestation to This Church-History of New-England,” the foreword to Magnalia, Christi Americana, John Higginson wrote:

It hath been deservedly esteemed one of the great and wonderful works of God in this last age, that the Lord stirred up the spirits of so many thousands of his servants, to leave the pleasant land of England, the land of their nativity, and to transport themselves, and families, over the ocean sea, into a desert land in America … and this, merely on the account of pure and undefiled Religion … seeking first the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof… Surely of this work, and of this time, it shall be said, what hath God wrought? And, this is the Lord’s doings, it is marvellous in our eyes! Even so (O Lord) didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name [Isa. 63:141] John Higginson, “An Attestation to This Church-History of New-England,” Foreword to Pastor Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana: or, The Ecclesiastical History of New-England, 1702, subsequent ed. reprint. (New York, NY: Russell & Russell, 1967) vol. 1, p. 13.

Daniel Webster

…if God prosper us, we shall here begin a work which shall last for ages; we shall plant here a new society, in the principles of the fullest liberty and the purest religion; we shall subdue this wilderness which is before us; we shall fill this region of the great continent, which stretches almost from pole to pole, with civilization and Christianity; the temples of the true God shall rise, where now ascends the smoke of idolatrous sacrifice ….Daniel Webster, discourse at Plymouth Rock, 2 December 1820, The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company, 1858) vol. 1, p. 10.

Patrick Henry

America’s Christian foundations could not be affirmed any more emphatically than they were by Patrick Henry:

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Patrick Henry, quoted in David Barton, The Myth of Separation (Aledo, TX: Wallbuilders Press, 1992) p. 117.

David Josiah Brewer

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice David Josiah Brewer provided additional evidence that America began as a Christian nation:

We classify nations in various ways, as, for instance, by their form of government. One is a kingdom, another an empire, and still another a republic. Also by race. Great Britain is an Anglo-Saxon nation, France a Gaelic, Germany a Teutonic, Russia a Slav. And still again by religion. One is a Mohammedan nation, others are heathen, and still others are Christian nations….

This Republic is classified among the Christian nations of the world. It was so formally declared by the Supreme Court of the United States. In the case of HOLY TRINITY CHURCH vs. UNITED STATES, 143 U.S. 471, that Court … added, “these and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation….”

Nathaniel Morton also observed:

In the year 1602, divers godly Christians of our English nation … entered into covenant to walk with God, and one with another, in the enjoyment of the ordinances of God, according to the primitive pattern in the word of God .

1639 – FUNDAMENTAL AGREEMENT OF THE COLONY OF NEW HAVEN [Connecticut]: … We all agree that the scriptures hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of all men in duties which they are to perform to God and to man, as well in families and commonwealth as in matters of the church; so likewise in all public officers which concern civil order, as choice of magistrates and officers, making and repealing laws, dividing allotments of inheritance, and all things of like nature, we will, all of us, be ordered by the rules which the scripture holds forth; and we agree that such persons may be entrusted with such matters of government as are described in Exodus 18:21 and Deuteronomy 1: 13 with Deuteronomy 17:15 and I Corinthians 6:1,6 & 7.

1639 – CONNECTICUT HISTORY: In June 1639, however, a more definite statement of political principles was framed, in which it was clearly stated that the rules of Scripture should determine the ordering of the Church, the choice of magistrates, the making and repeal of laws … that only Church members could become free burgesses and officials of the colony … and in 1644 the general court decided that the judicial laws of God as they were declared by Moses should constitute a rule for all courts ….

1776 – DELAWARE CONSTITUTION: … officeholders were required to make and subscribe to the following declaration: “I … do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His Only Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forevermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration. “

1776 – NORTH CAROLINA CONSTITUTION: … no person who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within the State.

1777 -VERMONT CONSTITUTION: …required of every member of the house of representatives that he take this oath: “I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by divine inspiration, and own and profess the Protestant religion. “

Alexis de Tocqueville recognized the uniqueness of our beginnings and wrote of the Scriptural, moral and civil code which was the foundation for those early laws of New England:

… in studying the earliest historical and legislative records of New England. They exercised the rights of sovereignty; they named their magistrates, concluded peace or declared war, made police regulations, and enacted laws as if their allegiance was due only to God. Nothing can be more curious and, at the same time more instructive, than the legislation of that period; it is there that the solution of the great social problem which the United States now present[s] to the world is to be found.

Amongst these documents we shall notice, as especially characteristic, the code of laws promulgated by the little State of Connecticut in 1650. The legislators of Connecticut begin with the penal laws, and … they borrow their provisions from the text of Holy Writ. “Whosoever shall worship any other God than the Lord,” says the preamble of the Code, “shall surely be put to death.” This is followed by ten or twelve enactments of the same kind, copied verbatim from the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Blasphemy, sorcery, adultery, and rape were punished with death ….

The 1879 McGuffey’s Sixth Eclectic Reader clearly illustrated how early America’s Christianity influenced her government:

Their form of government was as strictly theocratical … insomuch that it would be difficult to say where there was any civil authority among them entirely distinct from ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

Whenever a few of them settled a town, they immediately gathered themselves into a church; and their elders were magistrates, and their code of laws was the Pentateuch]….

God was their King; and they regarded him as truly and literally so ….

James Madison, “the Father of the U.S. Constitution” and our fourth President, understood that the future of our American civilization was (and still is) dependent upon the Laws of God:

We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.

Jewish Encyclopedia

UNITED STATES: … the early forms of government and laws were fashioned in a manner upon Old Testament times. This was particularly the case in Massachusetts (whose first criminal code [in 16411 gave chapter and verse from the Bible as its authority), as also in Connecticut. The records of the colony of New Haven, founded in 1638, have distinctly Old Testament character, and Biblical precedent is quoted for almost every governmental act. One can form some opinion of the measure of Old Testament influence when one considers that in the code of colony laws adopted in New Haven in 1656 there are 107 references to the Old Testament....

But Jews as individuals contributed little or nothing to direct the trend of colonial legislation of this early period.

Forefathers of the Puritans & Immigrants to America believed they were Israel

Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, England
During his reign from 871 to 899 the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great declared:

Be ye kind to the stranger within thy gates, for ye were strangers in the land of the Egyptians

Scottish Declaration of Independence
In 1320 the Scottish Declaration of Independence was drawn up by King Robert (the Bruce) and twenty-five Scottish nobles in which the Scots are addressed as Israelites. This great document states the following regarding their migrations:

…the Scots … passing from the greater Scythia … and coming thence one thousand two hundred years after the outgoing of the people of Israel … acquired for themselves the possessions in the West…

Adam de Houghton, Bishop of Saint David, Wales
In 1377 Adam de Houghton, the Bishop of Saint David, Wales, delivered a speech before the British Parliament in which he recognized England as Israel:

…you may embrace your noble King … there is through him [King Edward III] that peace over Israel which the Scriptures name – Israel being the heritage of God, and that heritage being also England. For in good truth, I believe that God would never have honoured this country by victories such as had given glory to Israel, had He not intended it for His heritage also.

William Tyndale, English Reformer and Martyr
In 1530 the great English religious reformer, William Tyndale, who translated the New Testament and the Pentateuch into English announced his amazing discovery:

…the properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin. The manner of speaking is both one; so that in a thousand places thou needest not but to translate it into the English, word for word; when thou must seek a compass in the Latin, and yet shall have much work to translate it well-favouredly, so that it have the same grace and sweetness, sense and pure understanding with it in the Latin, and as it hath in the Hebrew. A thousand parts better may it [the Hebrew tongue] be translated into the English, than into the Latin.

Sir Francis Drake, English Navigator and Admiral
In 1587 Sir Francis Drake, an explorer for Queen Elizabeth I, wrote to the religious writer John Foxe beseeching his prayers:

God may be glorious, His church, our Queen and country preserved, the enemies of truth vanquished, that we may have continued peace in Israel…. Our enemies are many, but our Protector commandeth the whole world….

King James VI of Scotland and I of England

King James VI of Scotland (James I of England) (1566-1625), who commissioned the King James Bible, claimed that the Lord had made him King over Israel; the gold coin of his day, bearing his head was called the “Jacobus” and James had the reverse inscribed in Latin the prophecy of Ezekiel 37:22, “I will make of them one nation.”

Pastor John Cotton, Puritan Clergyman
In 1630, prior to the departure of the ship Abrella for America with Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop and his fellow Puritans aboard, the young Puritan minister John Cotton preached a stirring farewell message taken from 2 Samuel 7:10:

I will appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed….

Pastor Cotton further exhorted his audience:

Go forth … with a publick spirit … have a tender care … to your children, that they doe not degenerate as the Israelites did….

American historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote the following concerning Pastor Cotton’s sermon:

Cotton’s sermon was of a nature to inspire these new children of Israel with the belief that they were the Lord’s chosen people; destined, if they kept the covenant with Him, to people and fructify this new Canaan in the western wilderness.

B. Woodbridge concluded his epitaph for Pastor John Cotton with the following words:

Though Moses [referring to Pastor John Cotton] be [dead], yet Joshua is not dead: I mean renowned [Pastor John] Norton; worthy he, Successor to our Moses, is to be. O happy Israel in America. In such a Moses, such a Joshua.

Edward Johnson, English Historian
In 1630 historian Edward Johnson, writing of those early Puritan and Pilgrim settlers, often made reference to them as being Israel:

…the Lambe is preparing his Bride … yee the ancient Beloved of Christ, whom he of old led by hand from Egypt to Canaan through that great and terrible Wildernesse.

…you the Seed of Israel both lesse and more, the rattling of your dead bones is at hand, Sinewes, Flesh and Life: at the Word of Christ it comes.

…you People of Israel gather together as one Man, and together as one Tree. Ezekiel 37 and 23.31

Then judge all you … whether these poore New England People, be not the forerunners of Christ’s Army, and the marvelous providences which you shall now heare, be not the very Finger of God, and whether the Lord hath not sent this people to Preach in this Wildernesse, and to proclaime to all Nations, the neere approach of the most wonderful workes that ever the Sonnes of men saw. Will not you believe that a Nation can be borne in a day [Isa. 66:8 – a Scripture that can only be fulfilled in Israel]?

This year the great troubles in our native country encreasing, and that hearing prophane Esau had mustered up all thye Bands he could make to come against his brother Jacob, these wandering race of Jacobites deemed it now high time to implore the Lord for his especial aid in this time of their deepest distress.

As Jacob professes, I came over this Jordan with my staff, and now have I gotten two Bands; so they came over this boisterous billow-boyling Ocean, a few poor scattered stones raked out of the heaps of rubbish, and thou Lord Christ has now so far exalted them, as to lay them sure in thy Sion … the seed of Christ’s Church in the posterity of Israel should be cut off, and therefore pleaded the promise of the Lord in the multiplying of his seed; so these people at this very time, pleaded not only the Lord’s promise to Israel, but to his only son Christ Jesus.

Pastor Jonathan Mitchell, Puritan Preacher
On October 4, 1649, Pastor Jonathan Mitchell wrote in his diary:

…God will humble me before the sun, and in the sight of all Israel

On August 8, 1667, at Pastor John Wilson’s funeral, Pastor Mitchell included the following in his eulogy:

Ah! Now there’s none who does not know, that this day in our Israel, is fall’n a great and good man too

Nathaniel Morton, New Plymouth Court Secretary
In 1669 in New England’s Memorial, Nathaniel Morton wrote of God moving the seed of Abraham to New England:

That especially the seed of Abraham his servant, and the children of Jacob his chosen, may remember his marvelous works (Psal. 105.5,6.) in the beginning and progress of the planting of New-England, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth; how that God brought a vine into this wilderness; that he cast out the heathen and planted them in the mountain of his inheritance (Exod. 15.13.) in respect of precious gospel-enjoyments. So that we may not only look back to former experiences of God’s goodness to our [Israelite] predecessors, (though many years before) and so have our faith strengthened in the mercies of God for our times

I shall close up this small history with a word of advice to the rising generation…. God did once plant a noble vine in New-England, but it is degenerated into the plant of a strange vine. Jer. ii, 21. It were well that it might be said that the rising generation did serve the Lord all the days of such as in this our Israel …Josh. xxiv, 31.

Pastor James Keith, American Clergyman
On October 30, 1676, in a letter to Pastor John Cotton, Pastor James Keith wrote the following:

Let us join our prayers, at the throne of grace, with all our might, that the Lord would so dispose of all of public motions and affairs, that his Jerusalem, in this wilderness, may be the habitation of justice and the mountain of holiness

Pastor Increase Mather, American Clergyman and Author
In 1681, in a preface to a discourse on Urian Oakes, Pastor Increase Mather wrote the following:

…[Urian Oakes] at last called to the head of the “sons of the prophets” in this New-English Israel

Pastor John Bunyan, English Preacher and Author
Regarding the beliefs of Pastor John Bunyan (1628-1688), author of Pilgrim’s Progress, Rabbi Louis Finkelstein commented:

…Bunyan actually fancied himself an Israelite

Pastor Cotton Mather, American Clergyman and Historian
In 1702 a Boston minister Cotton Mather wrote the following concerning New England and some of her earlier inhabitants:

…in our hastening voyage unto the History of a new-English Israel

…I am going to give unto the Christian reader an history of some feeble attempts made in the American hemisphere to anticipate the state of the New-Jerusalem

These good people [the first settlers of Plymouth, Massachusetts] were now satisfied, they had as plain a command of Heaven to attempt a removal [from England, Ireland and Scotland], as ever their father Abraham had for his leaving the Chaldean territories…

Among these passengers were divers worthy and useful men, who were come to seek the welfare of this little Israel…
The colony might fetch its own description from the dispensations of the great God, unto his ancient Israel, and say, “O, God of Hosts, thou has brought a vine out of England…

whilst he [Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Governor John Winthrop] thus did, as our New-English Nehemiah, the part of a ruler in managing the public affairs of our American Jerusalem … he made himself still an exacter parallel unto the the governour of Israel…
Make room, then, for Urian Oakes, ye records of New-England. He was born in England … whose liberal education in our College have rendered the family not he least in our little Israel…

Dean Jacque Abadie, French Educator and Author
In 1723 Dean Jacques Abbadie of Killaloe, Ireland, wrote regarding the whereabouts of the “lost” Israelites:

Unless the Ten Tribes of Israel are flown into the air, or sunk into the earth; they must be those ten Gothic Tribes that entered Europe in the fifth century, overthrew the Roman Empire and founded the ten nations of modern Europe.

Alexander Cruden, Scottish Bible Concordance Compiler
In 1761 on a page addressed “TO THE KING” in the well-known Concordance of Alexander Cruden, the author renders this prayer:

May the great God be the guide of your life, and direct and prosper you, that it may be said by the present and future ages, that King George the Third hath been an Hezekiah to our British Israel.

In 1773 the men of Marlborough, Connecticut, made this proclamation:

Death is more eligible than slavery. A freeborn people are not required by the religion of Jesus Christ to submit to tyranny, but may make use of such power as God has given them to recover and support their laws and liberties… (they) implored the Ruler above the skies, that He would make bare His arm in defense of His church and people, and let Israel go.

Jonathan Trumbull, Connecticut Governor
In a letter dated July 13, 1775, to George Washington (then Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army) Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut, wrote in part:

…be strong and very courageous, May the God of the Armies of Israel shower down the blessings of His Divine Providence on You

George Washington

[Almighty God] Endow with the spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be peace and justice at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth….

One may wonder at whether Governor Trumbull was referring to the Continental Army as one of the “armies of Israel.” There appears no question as to his intent when one reads another exhortation written in his own hand later that same year. In a public proclamation concerning Thanksgiving, dated October 14, 1775, Governor Trumbull proclaimed:

That God would … guide our affairs in this dark and difficult Day; and make them know what Israel ought to do … that He would confirm and increase Union and Harmony in the Colonies, and throughout America…

Great Seal of the United States of America
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed a committee to design a seal for the emerging new nation. The committee was composed of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Both Franklin and Jefferson proposed designs related to ancient Israel. While John Adams’ contribution is not recorded here, he wrote to his wife, Abigail, on August 1, 1776, and described in part what the committee had thus far accomplished:

Dr. F[ranklin] proposes a Device for a seal. Moses lifting up his Wand, and dividing the Red Sea, and Pharaoh, in his Chariot overwhelmed with the Waters … The motto: Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.

Mr. Jefferson proposed. The Children of Israel in the Wilderness, led by a Cloud by day, and Pillar of Fire by night, and on the others Side Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon Chiefs, from whom We claim the Honour of being descended and whose Political Principles and Form of Government We have assumed.

Following are later depictions of these ideas by Franklin and Jefferson:

Pastor John Clark, American Preacher
In 1781 in his election sermon, Pastor Jonas Clark spoke of the children of the captivity who came to this new land to serve God:

Under this happy [Massachusetts] constitution we have seen, to universal satisfaction, that blessed prophecy concerning GOD’S people after their return from captivity, literally fulfilled unto us “There congregation shall be established before me – their nobles shall be of themselves, and their Governor shall proceed from the midst of them.” (Jer. 30:20-21)

May we not – yea, rather, ought we not, upon this joyful occasion, in a deep sense of our obligations to heaven, to ascribe the glory of all to GOD, and devoutly acknowledge that this is the LORD’S doing; it is marvelous in our eyes!

On this joyful day we are invited to see God, the Supreme ruler, on the throne of his holiness, the favour and defence of an afflicted land; “The princes of the people of the God of Abraham gathered together”: And ‘The Shields of the earth.” (Ps. 47:9) The rulers of every department, devoting themselves to the service of God and their country, in devout acknowledgement of his government, to the end, that God might be greatly exalted, in the good of his people, by their administration.

Noah Webster, American Statesman and Lexicographer
In 1783 Noah Webster wrote The Elementary Spelling Book, better known as the Blue-Back Speller. Following “Lesson Number 123” we find Mr. Webster’s sentiments regarding our Israelite relatives:

All Israelites are brethren, descendents of common parents. How unnatural and wicked it is to make war on our brethren, to conquer them or to plunder and destroy them

George Washington, American General and President

In 1785 George Washington referred to America as the “second land of promise,and in his first inaugural address in April, 1789, he accredited Providence for advancing the affairs of this new nation:

No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency

Thomas Jefferson, American Statesman and President
In 1814 in a letter written to Dr. Walter Jones regarding the death of President George Washington, Thomas Jefferson conveyed his belief in an American Israel:

I felt on his [George Washington’s] death, with my countyrmen, that “verily a great man hath fallen this day in Israel.”

Pastor B. Murphey, Canadian Preacher
In 1817 Pastor Murphey provided evidence for the Israelites’ migrations into Ireland:

Israelites came from Egypt into Ireland.

Washington Irving, American Essayist, Novelist, and Historian
In 1824 in his story “The Devil and Tom Walker,” Washington Irving wrote the following about a man whom he named “Absalom Crowinshield” who lived in New England in the 1700s:

It was announced in the papers with the usual flourish, that “A great man had fallen in Israel.”

Sir Walter Scott, Scottish Poet and Novelist
In 1830 in his novel Woodstock, Scottish author Sir Walter Scott had Oliver Cromwell using these words:

…as my soul liveth, and as He liveth who hath made me [Oliver Cromwell] a ruler in Israel

United States District Court for the District of Maine
On November 5, 1840, in a case titled “The Huntress, 12 F. Cas. 984, 993” regarding Constitutional neglect, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine declared:

…we may well ask, with some feelings of surprise, where during these seven years, were slumbering the watchmen of our American Israel.

Charters & Constitutions

In several colonies and States a profession of the Christian faith was made an indispensable condition to holding office. In the frame of government for Pennsylvania, prepared by William Penn, in 1683, it was provided that “all treasurers, judges, and other officers, and all members elected to serve in provincial council and general assembly, and all that have right to elect such members, shall be such as profess faith in Jesus Christ.” And in the charter of privileges for that colony, given in 1701 by William Penn and approved by the colonial assembly, it was provided “that all persons who also profess to believe in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, shall be capable to serve this government in any capacity, both legislatively and executively.”**

**Similar requirements can also be found in the Delaware Constitution of 1776; the New Hampshire Constitutions of 1704 and 1792; the Fundamental Constitutions of the Carolinas; the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780; the Fundamental Order of Connecticut for its Governor; the Vermont Constitution of 1777; the Maryland Constitution of 1776; the current Maryland Bill of Rights, Article 37; the Mississippi Constitution of 1817; and the Arkansas Constitution of 1874 with 1963 supplements – most of which are listed in Justice Brewer’s speech.

1606 – The Charter for the Virginia Colony read in part: “To the glory of
His divine Majesty, in propagating of the Christian religion to such people
as yet live in ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.”

1606 – JAMESTOWN CHARTER – Purpose: “…in propagation of the Christian religion.”

1606 – FIRST VIRGINIA CHARTER: “…tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God….”

1610 – NEW ENGLAND CHARTER – Aims in settling America: “…to increase the knowledge of the Omnipotent God and the propagation of our Christian faith.”*
*”First, it will be a service unto the Church of great consequence, to carry the Gospel unto those parts of the world, and raise a bulwark against the Kingdom of AntiChrist….” Pastor Cotton Mather, D.D., “General Considerations for the Plantation of New England,” Magnalia Christi Americana or The Ecclesiastical History of New-England quoted by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America (New York, NY: The Colonial Press, 1899) Vol. 2, p. 360.

1609 – Second Virginia Charter – Purpose: “to live in fear and true worship of Almighty God, Christian peace, and civil quietness.”

1610 – New England Charter -Aims in settling America: “to increase the knowledge of the Omnipotent God and the propagation of our Christian faith. Walter S. Remmie, “This Is a Christian Nation,” Kingdom Digest (Irving, TX) July 1981, p. 28.

1620 – MAYFLOWER COMPACT (the first legal document in America): “In the name of God amen … having undertaken for the glory of God, and [the] advancement of the Christian faith….”

1620 – King James I granted the Charter of the Plymouth council. “In the
hope thereby to advance the enlargement of the Christian religion, to the
glory of God Almighty.”

1620 – The Pilgrims sign the Mayflower Compact aboard the Mayflower, in
Plymouth Harbor. “For the glory of God and advancement of ye Christian faith.
doe by these presents solemnly & mutually in ye presence of God and one of
another, covenant & combine our selves together into a civil body
politick[sic].”

1623 – “But God gave them health and strength in a good measure; and
showed them by experience the truth of the word, Deuteronomy 8:3: ‘Man does
not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the
Lord.’” (William Bradford, in BHOPP, p. 175).

1624 -SWEDISH CHARTER OF DELAWARE COLONY: “In the first place God’s glory, which above all must be especially cared for and promoted, can be increased thereby, His blessed Word and Holy Gospel planted and spread among all kinds of people and many thousand souls be brought to the true knowledge and understanding of God.”

1629 – The first Charter of Massachusetts read in part: “For the
directing, ruling, and disposing of all other Matters and Thinges, whereby
our said People may be soe religiously, peaceablie, and civilly governed, as
their good life and orderlie Conversacon, maie wynn and incite the Natives of
the Country to the Knowledg and Obedience of the onlie true God and Savior of
Mankinde, and the Christian Fayth, which in our Royall Intencon, and The
Adventurers free profession, is the principall Ende of the
Plantacion….”[sic]

1632 – MARYLAND CHARTER: [our Celto-Saxon forefathers were] animated with a laudable and pious zeal for extending the Christian religion … Cecil Calvert [founder of Maryland] wrote in a letter at the time: “At the place prepared we [Celto-Saxon Christians] all kneeled down and said certain prayers; taking possession of the country for our Saviour and for our sovereign Lord.” Nathanial Morton, New England’s Memorial (Cambridge, MA: S.G. and M.J. for John Usher, 1669), reproduced with extracts from other writers (Boston, MA: Congregational Board of Publication, 1854) p. 20.

1630 – Settlement of Massachusetts published under the subtitle of “Wonder-Working Providence of Zion’s Saviour.”

1636 – Harvard, which was the first college in America, whose name-sake and benefactor* stated in his provision for a fund to build a college: “Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, John 17:3, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.” 1636 Harvard University document, quoted in John le Boutillier, Harvard Hates America: The Odyssey of a Born-again American (South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1978), quoted in Walter S. Remmie, “This is a Christian Nation,” Kingdom Digest (Irving, TX, July 1981) p. 29.
John Harvard (1607-1638) was the namesake and benefactor of Harvard University, founded in 1636 and still operating undera 1650 charter

1638 – The towns of Hartford, Weathersfield, and Windsor adopt the
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. “To mayntayne and presearve the liberty
and purity of the Gospell of our Lord Jesus, which we now professe….” [sic]

1639 – The governing body of New Hampshire is established. “Considering
with ourselves the holy will of God and our own necessity, that we should not
live without wholesome laws and civil government among us, of which we are
altogether destitute, do, in the name of Christ and in the sight of God,
combine ourselves together to erect and set up among us such government as
shall be, to our best discerning, agreeable to the will of God….”

1639 – Fundamental Orders of Connecticut states as a part of its purpose: “to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess…Walter S. Remmie, “This is a Christian Nation,” Kingdom Digest (Irving, TX, July 1981) pp. 28-29. Additional documents, charters, constitutions, etc., are quoted in this same article.

1643 -ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION: “Whereas we all came into these parts of America with one and ye same end and arms, namely to advance the Kingdom of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and to enjoys ye liberties of ye Gospell in puritie with peace….”
1775 – In Patrick Henry’s speech: “We shall not fight alone. God presides
over the destinies of nations, and will raise up friends for us. The battle
is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave…
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains
and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God! I know not what course others may take,
but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

1787 Article III of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787: “Religion, morality,
and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of
mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

1789 – George Washington said “Let us with caution indulge the
supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.” (Schroeder
ed. p. 106)

1794 – John Jay, first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, in a
letter to his wife, stated “God’s will be done; to him I resign-in him I
confide. Do the like. Any other philosophy applicable to this occasion is
delusive. Away with it.” (Johnston ed. vol. 4, p. 7.)

In addition to the nation’s united expression of faith in God, each individual state has separately acknowledged God as Sovereign and as the Author of liberty. The Legislative Service of the Library of Congress has compiled the provisions of State constitutions relative to the Supreme Being. Pat Brooks, et.al., “50 Evidences that the U.S.A. is ‘Constitutionally Christian!,” Appendix D, Freedom or Slavery! (Fletcher, NC: New Puritan Library, 1990) p. 159. Pages 159-165 contain the pertinent portion of all 50 state constitutions.

ARIZONA, BILL OF RIGHTS, Section 12: The liberty of conscience shall not be construed to excuse acts of licentiousness….

CALIFORNIA, DECLARATION OF RIGHTS, Article 1, Section4: … The liberty of conscience does not excuse acts that are licentious….

DELAWARE, BILL OF RIGHTS, Article 1, Section 1: …it is the duty of all men to frequently assemble together for public worship of Almighty God; and piety and morality, on which the prosperity of communities depend are hereby promoted….

MARYLAND, BILL OF RIGHTS, Article 36: …it is the duty of every man to worship God; and piety and morality, on which the prosperity of communities depend are hereby promoted….

MASSACHUSETTS, DECLARATION OF RIGHTS, Article 2: It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly and at stated sessions, to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe.

Article 3: As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon the piety, religion and morality…. And every denomination of Christians….

MINNESOTA, BILL OF RIGHTS, Section 16: … The right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience shall never be infringed … the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness….

MISSISSIPPI, BILL OF RIGHTS, Section 18: … The rights hereby secured shall not be construed to justify acts of licentiousness injurious to morals or dangerous to the peace and safety of the state, or to exclude the Holy Bible from use in any public school of this state.

NEBRASKA, BILL OF RIGHTS, Article 1, Section 4: All persons have a natural indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience…. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the legislature to pass suitable laws to protect every religious denomination in the peaceful enjoyment of its own mode of public worship….

NEW HAMPSHIRE, BILL OF RIGHTS, Article 6: As morality and piety, rightly grounded on high principles, will give the best and greatest security to government, and will allay, in the hearts of men, the strongest obligations to due subjection; and as the knowledge of these is most likely to be propagated through society, therefore, the several parishes, bodies, corporate, or religious societies, shall at all times have the right of electing their own teachers, and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance, or both….

OHIO, BILL OF RIGHTS, Section 7: All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience…. Religion, morality, and knowledge, however, being essential to good government….

VIRGINIA, BILL OF RIGHTS, Article 1, Section 16: That religion or the duty which we owe our Creator… it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other….

On the 20th September, 1776, the first constitution of the Delaware State was adopted, the 22d article of which provided, that “every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat or entering upon the execution of his office, shall take the following oath … to wit: I … do profess of faith in God, the father, and Jesus Christ his only son, and in the Holy Ghost, on God blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the old and new testaments to be given by divine inspiration. Clayton, pp. 565-566.

Freedom of Religion

In 1776 there were approximately 2.5 million people in America. Less than one percent of the population was, represented by 20,000 Catholics, 3,000 Jews, and a few Deists; more than ninety-nine percent were Christian Protestants.

After the Constitution was signed and the Bill of Rights made provision of Freedom of Religion these numbers changed drastically.

In 2007 the percentages were as follows:

Which religion had the most to gain? Roman Catholicism. Yah willing, this will be addressed in a future study but it begs the question…who had the most to gain by the American Revolution? The Puritans and those who sought to follow the Scriptures in peace and freedom had no desire to rebel against the king. It was these same Puritans that refused to allow Catholicism to take a stronghold in America due to the persecution they saw in Europe. A good reference to learn about more history on the founding of America is ‘Rulers of Evil’ by Tupper Saussy.

Native American Indians

The Indians that were at the first Thanksgiving were the Wampanoag Indians.

The Wampanoag had their own harvest celebration in which they gave thanks for abundant crops to Kiehtan, the Creator. They believed corn, the most valued crop, was a gift from him. The tribe expressed gratitude to the spirits of the game for the animals they killed for food.

Wampanoagtribe.net

tribal elder Gladys Widdiss has to say about the Wampanoag and thanksgiving:

“Every day (is) a day of thanksgiving to the Wampanoag . . .(We) give thanks to the dawn of the new day, at the end of the day, to the sun, to the moon, for rain for helping crops grow. . . There (is) always something to be thankful for. .. Giving thanks comes naturally for the Wampanoag.”

These thanksgiving celebrations within the Tribe continue today. In addition to daily thanks there have always been set times for celebration that coincided with changes of season and harvests times. Our New Year comes at the Spring planting time. Summer is celebrated with Strawberry Thanksgiving, at the time when the first wild berry ripens. Green Bean Harvest and Green Corn Harvest come at mid-summer. Cranberry Harvest celebrates the ripening of the last wild berry. A ceremony is held around the time of Winter solstice as well. The harvest celebrations are held after the work has been completed. The celebrations held at these different points in the year are times of reflection and a prayer of thanks to the Creator for providing sustenance for our people. Our celebrations have always also included singing, dancing, and the sharing of food throughout the community.

Gladys Widdiss goes on to further explain the importance of this thanksgiving:

“With Native Americans you do not separate the spiritual from the rest of your life. You’re very involved with who you are, where you came from , and where you are going. We have special holidays or festivals, but every day is a day of thanksgiving.”

oyate.com

According to oral accounts from the Wampanoag people, when the Native people nearby first heard the gunshots of the hunting colonists, they thought that the colonists were preparing for war and that Massasoit needed to be informed. When Massasoit showed up with 90 men and no women or children, it can be assumed that he was being cautious. When he saw there was a party going on, his men then went out and brought back five deer and lots of turkeys.

Native American’s & Yisrael connection

Cherokee Indians

18th Century explorer, trader, and researcher, James Adair from London, author of History of the American Indians who spent 40 years among the Cherokees, wrote a book named Out of the Flame, listing 23 hard proofs why he believed the Cherokees were descended from Israel. Among other things, the Cherokees were fiercely monotheistic who observed the Ten Commandments to the letter. Harvard professor Barry Fell cites an ancient carving of the Ten Commandments in North America as further proof, another subscriber to the lost tribe theory. Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, former USAF Chaplain and prominent Jewish historian, also holds that the Indians of the Americas are descendants of Northern Israel’s seafaring tribes, Dan and Zevulun. The additional list is long and exhaustive.

Understanding the Exodus Stephen Barrett Segall
James Adair lived among the Cherokee for 40 years beginning in 1736 and John Howard Payne lived among them in the early 1800’s. Both speak of Cherokee legends about the creation, the great flood, expulsion from Eden, the Tower of Babel, Abraham, crossing the Red Sea, Moses, wandering in the wilderness and the construction of the tent of worship and sacred ark.
The Cherokee believed in life after death, reward and punishment after death for behavior in life, an emphasis on spiritual and sexual purity and the use of baptism and fasting as a means of purification.
On certain days Cherokee would assemple for worship in obedience to Ye ho waah. If obedient to Ye ho waah’s commandments they would spend eternity with Him in heaven, if not they would spend eternity in a lake of fire and be tortured forever.
In the Cherokee story of creation, the Great Spirit created the world in seven days. Man was created from the dust of the earth and the Creator breathed life into him. The Creator saw that man was loney and took one of his ribs to make a woman. Initially man could live forever, and snakes were not poisonous. But to make sure the world was not overpopulated the Creator made snakes poisonous and a member of the first family was bitten by a snake and died. As a result of this all people were doomed to death.
Cherokees tradition stated that Ye ho waah had commanded the people to rest from work every seventh day. They celebrated the new moon. They had crystals for predicting the future like the Urim and Thummim. They had a sacred ark that represented an everlasting bond between them and the Creator.
SEE Cherokee People by Thomas Mails

Cherokee Corn Feasts Parallel Jewish Holy Days!
Also, one of the more convincing evidences is that the Jews followed a Religious Calendar of 7 main Festivals. And so did the Mediavel Cherokee! Even more so, examination of these Celebrations show that they were basically about the same thing–except that the Cherokee followed the growing cycle of corn, rather than that of barley and wheat, as the Jews did.

And for a brief summary, these Mediavel Cherokee Festivals were:1- FIRST FULL MOON OF SPRING,
which would have been literally the Day of Passover, and was accompanied by the slaughter of a lot of animals to prepare the meat for that Feast Day, and was set by the sprouting of the new grass of Spring (like the Passover Barley)! [Not to mention the intensive Spring Cleaning of the Feast!]

2- GREEN CORN FESTIVAL,
which was when the corn first balled, so that it could be cooked and eaten–similar to First Fruits, when the Barley was first edible. (However, for the Cherokee, this occured later in the year, more towards Summer, as the Climate in America was not as warm as in the Middle East).

3- MATURE or RIPE CORN FESTIVAL,
which was set for 50 days after the Green Corn Festival (like Pentecost)–and when the Sacred Fire in the Heptagon (like the Jewish Temple Menorah) was re-lit for the next year!

4- GREAT NEW MOON FEAST,
which was set as the first Full Moon of Autumn, and when Cherokee myth said that the whole world was created (and similar to Rosh HaShannah)!

5- PROPITIATION and CEMENTATION CEREMONY,
for cleansing one’s soul of Sin, and joining in UNITY with the Community as they ALL joined with the Creator–setting their relationship to HIM in cement (and similar to the Day of Atonement, with its earlier Kol Nidre purifications and making ammends.) Moreover, as this ended the Torah Study Cycle, many Jewish boys were often bar mitzvahed here, with an appropriate ceremony for Cherokee lads, also.

6- FESTIVAL OF EXALTING or BONDING BUSH CEREMONY (week long),
or a very loose approximating of the 8 Day Feast of Tabernacles–and in the Fall.

Here we see that the Cherokees followed a festival cycle similar to the Scriptural festival cycle. Did the Wampanoag also trace their festivals back to the Scriptures?

1- Much of the information for the early or Mediavel Cherokee comes from the colonial works of Payne, Butrick, and Adair, a lot of which is quoted in THE CHEROKEE PEOPLE–The Story of the Cherokees, from Earliest Origins to Contemporary Times; by Thomas E. Mails, published in 1992 by Council Oak Books of Tulsa, Oklahoma. 2- Supplemental information confirming Mails work can also be found in The HISTORY OF THE CHEROKEE INDIANS and Their Legends and Folklore by Emmet Starr from Oklahoma City in 1921 but was reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Company of Baltimore, Maryland in 2004.

Pagan Harvest Festivals

Does the holiday of Thanksgiving derive from pagan customs like other holidays in American culture such as Christmas, Easter and Halloweenclick here?

The first feast wasn’t repeated, so it wasn’t the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the colonists didn’t even call the day Thanksgiving. To them, a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621 harvest feast–dancing, singing secular songs, playing games–wouldn’t have been allowed. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims minds.

History.com

World Book Encyclopedia, 1942 Edition, article entitled, Thanksgiving Day

‘Thanksgiving Day, in the United States and Canada, a day set apart for the giving of thanks to God for the blessings of the year. Originally, it was a harvest thanksgiving, and while the purpose has become less specific, the festival still takes place late in autumn, after the crops have been gathered.’ Indeed, it is probably an outgrowth of the Harvest-Home celebrations in England. Such celebrations are of very ancient origin, being nearly universal among primitive peoples.

The Ancient Greek Harvest festival was called Thesmophora and celebrated Demeter, the founder and goddess of the harvests. The symbols of Demeter were poppies of ears of corn, a basket of fruit and a little pig. The Roman goddess of the harvest, Ceres had a festival, which occurred on October 4th and was called the Cerelia.

In ancient China, the 15th day of the eighth month was considered the birthday of the moon. To honor this special occasion, the families held a festival called Chung Chiui trimmed with a meal of moon cakes, roasted pig, and fruit.

Each October the Romans danced to music and watched as parades awed the eyes of onlookers during a celebration they called Cerelia. During the tradition pig and fruit were offered as gifts to the gods, while the people feasted together in thankfulness to their goddess.

Egyptians celebrated fruitful harvest by honoring the God of Vegetation and fertility. This celebration was held each spring and included feasting, music and dancing.

The pagans in Rome celebrated their thanksgiving in early October. The holiday was dedicated to the goddess of the harvest, Ceres, and the holiday was called Cerelia. The Catholic church took over the pagan holiday and it became well established in England, where some of the pagan customs and rituals for this day were observed long after the Roman Empire had disappeared. In England the “Harvest Home” has been observed continuously for centuries.

The ancient Semites called the earth mother Astarte…The Phrygians called her Semele. These deities were absorbed by the Greeks into the one great goddess, Demeter.’ ‘The Roman also had a harvest festival which they called the Cerelia, after Ceres, the Roman goddess of the corn.’

In our own hemisphere, among the Aztecs of Mexico, the harvest took on a grimmer aspect. Each year a young girl, a representation of Xilonen, The goddess of the new corn, was beheaded. The Pawnees also sacrificed a girl. In a more temperate mood, the Cherokees of the American Southeast danced the Green Corn Dance and began the new year at harvest’s end.

We Gather Together: The Story of Thanksgiving, by Ralph and Adeline Linton, 1949.

‘Even before biblical times the ancient people of the Mediterranean Basin held festivals at harvest time in honor of the earth mother. The goddess of the corn (‘corn’ being the European term for any grain; Indian corn (American corn), is called maize), was always one of the most important deities in the hierarchy of the gods, and her child was the young god of vegetation.’17

‘The ancient Semites called the earth mother Astarte…The Phrygians called her Semele…The Minoans had an earth mother for each district. All these local deities were absorbed by the Greeks into the one great goddess, Demeter.’18

‘Besides eating, feasting, etc. the married women practiced special rites. Under the cover of night, the women spent the next day bathing nude in the sea and dancing and playing games on the shore. Then they fasted, sang songs, then feasted, sang, and had general gaiety. All this lasted over a period of several days.’19

‘The Roman harvest festival…was called the Cerelia, after Ceres, the Roman goddess of the corn.’20

‘With the acceptance of Christianity as the official religion of Rome and the conversion of the barbarians who had invaded the crumbling Empire, these pagan rituals were frowned upon and even forbidden by law. However, the peasants clung to them with a tenacity which has made the word ‘pagan’ (originally meaning simply ‘a villager’), a synonym for ‘heathen.’ As late as the sixth century … St. Benedict … found the local peasantry worshiping Apollo in a sacred grove. Even after conversion, old habits and beliefs died hard, and the church was too busy trying to keep the flame of civilization alive to trouble with minor heresies.’21

‘The benevolent earth mother … blended with the equally benevolent mother of Christ. Folk memory of local deities fused with the Christian tales of saints to provide patrons for villages, and the white robed goddess of grain lived on in various guises. To those who live close to the soil, the harvest has an emotional and religious significance … their gratitude finds expression in rites in honor of the being who they feel is most closely related to fruitfulness; a being of warm earth, rather then cold heaven.’22

‘Even today a half pagan belief in the corn mother still survives among the peasant’s in many parts of Europe.’23

‘The Pilgrims undoubtedly brought memories of such English harvest home celebrations with them when they came to the new world. They had also witnessed ‘thanksgiving’ ceremonies during their sojourn in Holland … The Pilgrims themselves would have denied that the Thanksgiving feast in honor of their first harvest in 1621 was evoked by memories of the profane practices of the old world; however, all revolutionaries, political or religious, once their goal is accomplished, turn back to the patterns of the society in which they have been reared, and the Pilgrims, at the time of the first Thanksgiving, were no exception.’24

‘In Peru, the ancient Indians worshiped the ‘Mother of Maize’ and tried every year to persuade her to bring in another good harvest. In Europe, the Austrians also had a ‘Corn Mother’ doll, fashioned from the last sheaf of grain cut in the field and then brought home to the village in the last wagon.’

Organic Gardening and Farming, Nov. 1975, page 132ff, the article entitled, Thanksgiving Day.

Cornucopia

The cornucopia,a horn-shaped container overflowing with fruit, nuts, and vegetables which is typically seen at Thanksgiving in the United States is a Pagan Symbol.

From Wikipedia,
The cornucopia (Latin: Cornu Copiae) is a symbol of food and abundance dating back to the 5th century BC, also referred to as horn of plenty, Horn of Amalthea, and harvest cone.

In Greek mythology, Amalthea was a goat who raised Zeus on her breast milk. When her horn was accidentally broken off by Zeus while playing together, this changed Amalthea into a unicorn with 17 whiskers. The god Zeus, in remorse, gave her back her horn. The horn then had supernatural powers which would give person in possession of it whatever he or she wished for. This gave rise to the legend of the cornucopia. The original depictions were of the goat’s horn filled with fruits and flowers: deities, especially Fortuna, was depicted with the horn of plenty. The cornucopia was also a symbol for a woman’s fertility.

In modern depiction, the cornucopia is typically a hollow, horn-shaped wicker basket typically filled with various kinds of festive fruit and vegetables. In North America, the cornucopia has come to be associated with Thanksgiving and the harvest.

Harvest Queen
A name given to Ceres the Roman goddess of agriculture and crops or to a young woman chosen from among the reapers to whom was given a post of honor at the harvest home. Demeter is the Greek version of the Egyptian goddess Isis and Roman version of Ceres.

Harvest festivals around the world:

* Mid-Autumn Festival: China
* Chuseok: Korea
* Dongmaeng: Korea
* Bon Festival: Japan
* Dożynki Poland
* Erntedank: Germany & Austria (1st Sunday in October)
* Festa e Grurit (Wheat Festival): A festival that used to mark the end of the harvest of wheat in Communist Albania. No longer observed.
* Freyfaxi (Aug. 1st): marks the beginning of the harvest in Norse paganism. Historically from Iceland, the celebration consists of blót, horse races, martial sports, and other events, often dedicated to the god Freyr.
* Harvest festival: United Kingdom
* Lammas or Lughnasadh (Aug 1): celebration of first harvest/grain harvest in Paganism and Wicca spirituality and by the ancient Celts.
* Mabon (Autumnal Equinox): the second of three recognized harvest sabbats in Paganism and Wicca
* Mhellia: Isle of Man
* Mehregan (October 2): Iran, Ancient Persia
* Annual Harvest Festival of Prosser, Washington, celebrated on the 4th full weekend in September
* Samhain (October 31): the third and final of three recognized harvest sabbats in Paganism and Wicca; celebration of the end of the harvest season and beginning of the Celtic New Year.
* Solung: falls between June and July for nine days. The Adi (also Abor) is a major collective tribe living in the Himalayan hills of Arunachal Pradesh
* Sukkot: Jewish harvest festival lasting eight days in the fall, in which time is spent in tabernacles or booths
* Hasyl toýy:Turkmenistan – the holiday on the last Sunday in November.
* Timoleague: Harvest Festival is held every year in August – Tigh Molaige in Irish
* Ikore: celebrated by the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria
* Khuado Pawi: celebrated by the Chin tribe of India, Burma and recently in the USA and many other parts of the world.

North America

* Duneland Harvest Festival: celebrated the last weekend in September in Porter, Indiana, near Chicago.
* Harvest Festival (United States): celebrated by American Christians on October 31st
* Thanksgiving (United States): the holiday on the fourth Thursday in November.
* Thanksgiving (Canada): the holiday on the second Monday in October.

South Asia

* Bhogali Bihu: (or Magh Bihu) is a harvest festival celebrated in Assam which marks the end of harvesting season in mid-January.
* Lohri: celebrated in North India esp. Punjab
* Nabanna: Bengal region which comprises West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh
* Onam: celebrated by Malayali people in Kerala (India) and other places
* Pongal: celebrated by Tamil people in Tamil Nadu (India) and other places
* Sankranthi or Makar Sankranti: Celebrated in several regions of India including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh
* Vaisakhi (or Baisakhi): celebrated by Punjabi people in Punjab (India), other parts of North India and elsewhere. The festival falls on the first day of Vaisakh month (usually mid-April), and marks the Punjabi New Year.
* Traditional New Year celebrations in Sri Lanka coincides with the harvest festival in mid-April.
* Dree Festival is a agricultural festival of the Apatanis of Ziro valley in Lower Subansiri District of Arunachal Pradesh, which is celebrated every year from 4th to 7th July.

South Asia

* Flores de Mayo :Flower festival in the Philippines
* Gawai Dayak: Malaysia
* Kaamatan (May 30-31), Sabah in Malaysia
* Maras Taun: Belitung in Indonesia
* Mid-Autumn Festival: Vietnam
* Pahiyas Rice festival in the Philippines

Thanksgiving in the Scriptures

Food is associated with thanksgiving

1Ti 4:4 Because every creature of God is good, and nothing to be thrust away, but having been received with thanksgiving;
1Ti 4:5 for through God’s Word and supplication it is sanctified.

Thanksgiving comes from the Hebrew word Hodu which derives from Yadah.

From the root yad (hand)

Thanksgiving used in the Scriptures

Col 4:2 Steadfastly continue in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving,
Col 4:3 praying together about us also, that God may open to us a door of the Word, to speak the mystery of Christ, on account of which I also have been bound,
Col 2:6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him,
Col 2:7 being rooted and being built up in Him, and being confirmed in the faith, even as you were taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Eph 5:1 Then become imitators of God, as beloved children,
Eph 5:2 and walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell.
Eph 5:3 But let not fornication, and all uncleanness, or greediness, be named among you, as is fitting for saints;
Eph 5:4 also baseness, and foolish talking, or joking (the things not becoming), but rather thanksgiving.

2Co 4:15 For all things are for you, that the grace may superabound through the greater number, and may cause the thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.

Jer 33:11 the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the voice of those saying, Praise YHWH of Hosts, for YHWH is good, for His mercy endures forever; those who shall bring the sacrifice of thanksgiving into the house of YHWH. For I will bring back the captivity of the land, as at the first, says YHWH.

Jer 30:17 For I will give health back to you, and I will heal you of your wounds, says YHWH, because they called you, Outcast; saying, This is Zion; no one is seeking for her.
Jer 30:18 So says YHWH, Behold I will turn the captivity of Jacob’s tents and will have mercy on his dwelling places. And the city shall be built on her ruin heap; and the fortress shall remain on its own ordinance.
Jer 30:19 And out of them shall come thanksgiving and the voice of those who are merry. And I will multiply them, and they shall not be few. I also will honor them, and they shall not be small.

Isa 51:3 For YHWH comforts Zion. He comforts all her desolations, and He makes her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of YHWH; joy and gladness shall be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of singing praise.
Isa 51:4 Hear Me, My people; yea, give ear to Me, My nation. For a law shall go out from Me, and My justice I will make rest as light to peoples.
Isa 51:5 My righteousness is near; My salvation went out; and My arms shall judge peoples; coastlands shall wait on Me, and they shall hope on My arm.

Psa 100:1 A Psalm of Thanksgiving. Shout joyfully to YHWH, all the land.
Psa 100:2 Worship YHWH with gladness; come before His face with joyful singing.
Psa 100:3 Know that YHWH, He is God; He has made us, and not we ourselves, His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Psa 100:4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, into His courts with praise; be thankful to Him; bless His name.
Psa 100:5 For YHWH is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His faithfulness to generation and generation.

Psa 107:1 Give thanks to YHWH, for He is good; for His mercy endures forever.
Psa 107:2 Let the redeemed of YHWH say so, whom He redeemed from the hand of the foe;
Psa 107:3 and gathered them from the lands; from east and from west; from north and from south.
Psa 107:4 They wandered in the wilderness, in a desert way; they found no city of dwelling;
Psa 107:5 hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them;
Psa 107:6 and they cried to YHWH in their distress; He delivered them from their straits.
Psa 107:7 And He guided them in the right way; to go to a city of dwelling.
Psa 107:8 Let them thank YHWH for His mercy, and His wonders to the sons of man.
Psa 107:9 He satisfies the thirsty soul, and He fills the hungry soul with good.
Psa 107:10 Those who live in the darkness, and in the shadow of death, being prisoners in affliction and iron,
Psa 107:11 because they rebelled against the Words of God, and despised the counsel of the Most High;
Psa 107:12 and He humbled their heart by toil; they stumbled, and none were helping;
Psa 107:13 and they cried to YHWH in their distress; He saved them out of their distresses;
Psa 107:14 He brought them out from darkness and the shadow of death; and He broke their bonds apart.
Psa 107:15 Let them thank YHWH for His mercy, and His wonders to the sons of man.
Psa 107:16 For He has broken the gates of bronze; and He cut bars of iron in two.
Psa 107:17 Fools are afflicted from the way of their rebellion, and from their iniquities;
Psa 107:18 their soul hates every food; and they touch the gates of death;
Psa 107:19 and they cried to YHWH in their distress; He saved them from their straits;
Psa 107:20 He sent His Word and healed them; and delivered them from all their pitfalls.
Psa 107:21 Let them thank YHWH for His mercy, and His wonders to the sons of man.
Psa 107:22 And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and recount His works with rejoicing.
Psa 107:23 They who go down to the sea in ships, who work in the great waters;
Psa 107:24 these see the works of YHWH, and His wonders in the deep.
Psa 107:25 For He speaks, and He raises stormy wind, and makes its waves high;
Psa 107:26 they go up to the heavens; they go down to the depths; their soul is melted because they are in evil;
Psa 107:27 they reel and stagger like a drunken man, and all their wisdom is swallowed up;
Psa 107:28 and they cry to YHWH in their distress, and He saves them out of their straits.
Psa 107:29 He settles the storm to a whisper, so that its waves are still;
Psa 107:30 and they are glad, because they are quiet; and He led them to their desired haven.
Psa 107:31 Let them thank YHWH for His mercy, and His wonders to the sons of mankind;
Psa 107:32 and exalt Him in the congregation of the people; and praise Him in the seat of the elders.
Psa 107:33 He sets rivers to a wilderness, and watersprings to thirsty ground;
Psa 107:34 a fruitful land to a salty desert; because of the wickedness of those who live in it.
Psa 107:35 He puts the wilderness into pools of water; and dry land into water-springs;
Psa 107:36 and He makes the hungry live there, and they may prepare a city of dwelling.
Psa 107:37 And they sow the fields, and plant vineyards, and make fruits of produce.
Psa 107:38 He also blesses them, so that they multiply greatly; and He does not allow their cattle to diminish;
Psa 107:39 but they are diminished and bowed down from coercion, evil and grief.
Psa 107:40 He pours scorn on nobles, and causes them to wander in a desert; there is no path.
Psa 107:41 But He raises the poor up from affliction, and He sets families like a flock.
Psa 107:42 The upright shall see and be glad; and all iniquity shuts its mouth.
Psa 107:43 Whoever is wise and will observe these things, they shall discern the mercies of YHWH.
Psa 50:14 Offer thanksgiving to God, and pay your vows to the Most High.
Psa 50:15 And call on Me in the day of distress, and I will save you; and you shall glorify Me.
Psa 26:7 to cause to hear with the voice of thanksgiving and recount all Your wonderful works.
Psa 105:1 O give thanks to YHWH; call on His name; make His deeds known among the peoples.
Psa 105:2 Sing to Him; sing praises to Him; tell of all His wonders.
Psa 105:3 Glory in His holy name; let the heart of those who seek YHWH rejoice.
Psa 105:4 Seek YHWH and His strength; seek His face without ceasing.
Psa 105:5 Remember His wonders that He has done, His miracles, and the judgments of His mouth,
Psa 105:6 O seed of His servant Abraham; O sons of Jacob, His elect.
Psa 105:7 He is YHWH our God; His judgments are in all the earth;
Psa 105:8 He has remembered His covenant forever; the Word He commanded to a thousand generations;
Psa 105:9 which He cut with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac;
Psa 105:10 and He established it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel for a perpetual covenant;
Psa 105:11 saying, To you I will give the land of Canaan, the portion of your inheritance;
Psa 105:12 when they were a few men of number; very few, and aliens in it.
Psa 105:13 And they went about from nation to nation; from one kingdom to another people.
Psa 105:14 He allowed no man to oppress them; yea, He reproved kings for their sakes;
Psa 105:15 saying, Touch not My anointed; and, Do My prophets no harm.
Psa 105:16 And He called a famine on the land; He broke the whole staff of bread.
Psa 105:17 He sent a man before them, Joseph, being sold for a slave;
Psa 105:18 they hurt his feet with chains; his soul came into iron;
Psa 105:19 until the time His Word came, the Word of YHWH refined him;
Psa 105:20 the king, the ruler of peoples, sent and shook off his links and set him free;
Psa 105:21 he made him lord of his house, and ruler over all he owned;
Psa 105:22 to bind his leaders at his will, and to teach his elders wisdom.
Psa 105:23 Israel also came into Egypt, and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.
Psa 105:24 And He increased His people greatly and made them stronger than their enemies.
Psa 105:25 He turned their heart to hate His people, to deal craftily with His servants.
Psa 105:26 He sent His servant Moses and Aaron whom He had chosen.
Psa 105:27 They put things of His signs among them; yea, wonders in the land of Ham.
Psa 105:28 He sent darkness and made it dark; and they did not rebel against His Word.
Psa 105:29 He turned their waters into blood and killed their fish.
Psa 105:30 Their land swarmed with frogs in the rooms of their kings.
Psa 105:31 He spoke, and fly swarms came; gnats in all their borders.
Psa 105:32 He gave hail for their rain, flaming fire in their land.
Psa 105:33 He struck their vines also, and their fig trees; and He broke the trees of their borders.
Psa 105:34 He spoke, and locusts came; and larvae without number;
Psa 105:35 and they ate up all the plants in the land; yea, ate the fruit of their ground.
Psa 105:36 He also struck all the first-born in their land, the firstfruit of all their vigor.
Psa 105:37 And He led them out with silver and gold; and among their tribes, not one was stumbling.
Psa 105:38 Egypt was glad when they went out, for their dread had fallen on them.
Psa 105:39 He spread a cloud for a covering; and fire to give light in the night.
Psa 105:40 He asked, and He brought quail; and satisfied them with the food from the heavens.
Psa 105:41 He opened the rock, and waters gushed out; they went in the dry places like a river.
Psa 105:42 For He remembered His holy Word and His servant Abraham;
Psa 105:43 and He brought His people out with joy; His elect with gladness.
Psa 105:44 And He gave to them the lands of the nations; and they inherited the labor of the peoples;
Psa 105:45 so that they might observe His statutes and keep His laws. Praise YHWH!

Rev 7:12 saying, Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength to our God forever and ever. Amen.

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Quotes, Pics, and Clips VI

Huston — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:15:35 +0000

I’m resurrecting an installment I used to do, a bite-sized anthology of things I had recently

Liberty must be supported . . .

nhiemstra — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:07:21 +0000

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood. … A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.” –John Adams

American History videos

littleguyintheeye — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:31:30 +0000

video page updated
American History
click here

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

apcig — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:57:53 +0000

- John Adams