Forged in Faith: How Faith Shaped the Birth of the Nation 1607-1776 - Hardcover

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A former journalist, historian Rod Gragg is director of the Center for Military and Veterans Studies at  Coastal Carolina University, where he also serves as an adjunct professor of history.  His works have earned the Fletcher Pratt Award, the James I. Robertson Award and other honors, and have been selected for the Book-of-the-Month Club, the History Book Club and the Military History Book Club.

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CHAPTER 1

“Plead Our Cause, O Lord”

Already they were bickering. It was day two of the First Continental Congress—Tuesday, September 6, 1774. Delegates from twelve of America’s thirteen colonies had assembled at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia to officially react to deteriorating relations between Great Britain and its American colonies. Decades of disagreement had led to a tense crisis between the colonies and the Mother Country. In an attempt to resolve the issues, the colonies had dispatched delegations to Philadelphia’s grand assembly, which was the first of its kind in America. Opening deliberations had been cordial and productive. The delegates had voted to call their assembly the “Continental Congress,” had appointed Virginia delegate Peyton Randolph as its president, and had agreed to meet in Philadelphia’s Carpenters’ Hall. Then came day two—and the opening display of cooperation sank into a mire of argument.¹

At issue was the question of how to count votes. Large colonies wanted their large populations to count for more. Small colonies wanted equal representation. Amid the debate, Philadelphia’s church bells began tolling at the news that British forces were bombarding the city of Boston. It was a false alarm, but it added to an atmosphere of anxiety in Congress. The dark mood may have been heightened by the deadly risk each delegate faced by simply being there. The unprecedented assembly was unauthorized by Britain’s King George III or the British Parliament. Among the delegates in attendance were men who believed the British government’s treatment of the American colonies amounted to tyranny. Such politics were deemed treasonous by some, and the delegates undoubtedly knew what grisly fate sometimes befell traitors to the Crown.²

If arrested and convicted of high treason, a delegate might find himself in Great Britain’s notorious Tower of London, waiting to be “drawn and quartered.” If so sentenced, he would first be hanged until almost dead, then cut down and disemboweled. While still alive, he would be forced to watch his intestines burned. Then, one by one, other bodily organs would be torturously removed until death finally occurred. Afterward, his corpse would be beheaded and his torso cut into quarters. Finally, his head would be publicly mounted on a post. “Let us prepare for the worst,” New Jersey delegate Abraham Clark at one point advised a colleague; “we can Die here but once.” Debate on how to count votes concluded with a consensus—a single vote for each delegation—but the tension among delegates led some to fear that the Continental Congress might dissolve in disunity.³

Then Massachusetts delegate Thomas Cushing made a motion. Cushing was a forty-nine-year-old Boston lawyer, a Harvard alumnus, and a successful merchant. A member of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, he was a prominent champion of Colonial political rights—always “busy in the interest of liberty,” according to a colleague. He observed the second day’s tense deliberations with the savvy of a seasoned statesman—then he acted. From now on, Cushing formally proposed, Congress should officially open its day with prayer. The motion reflected Cushing’s personal faith—he was a deacon at Boston’s Old South Congregational Church—and it also reflected the common faith of most delegates. Even so, Cushing’s motion for prayer provoked an immediate challenge.⁴

Concerns were voiced by John Rutledge of South Carolina and John Jay of New York. A thirty-five-year-old London-educated attorney, Rutledge was renowned for his eloquence and political acumen. The older of two brothers in the South Carolina delegation, he would eventually become his state’s governor and later the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was anything but a critic of Christianity: tutored by clergymen as a child, he was an Anglican who worshipped at Charleston’s St. Michael’s Church.⁵

John Jay was also a believer. At twenty-eight, the New York attorney was a prominent member of New York City’s Trinity Church. Descended from French Huguenots who had been driven from Europe for their Protestant faith, he would eventually become president of the American Bible Society. Like Rutledge, he too would someday become a governor and a U.S. chief justice, and—like Rutledge—he made no argument for separation of church and state. They were merely concerned that a congressional prayer might increase disunity because so many Christian denominations were represented in Congress. Could the delegates unite in a congressional act of worship?⁶

Massachusetts delegate Samuel Adams believed so—and he quickly rose to support Cushing’s prayer motion. By almost any measure, Sam Adams was the most famous advocate of Colonial rights in America—and the most controversial. Politics was his passion, and he was a master of the craft. An instrumental leader in the Massachusetts legislature, he was viewed by many as Colonial America’s leading defender, but Britain’s leaders called him an “angel of darkness.” He too was devout. Raised in a family of committed Christians, he had considered the ministry in his youth. Now, as a middle-aged Calvinist, he took his faith seriously, and was said to possess “the dogmatism of a priest.”⁷

He was “no Bigot,” Sam Adams told his fellow delegates. He “could hear a Prayer from a Gentleman of Piety and Virtue, who was at the same Time a Friend to his Country”—and he heartily endorsed the call to congressional prayer. Congress agreed—and promptly passed Cushing’s motion. Beginning the next day, the Continental Congress would officially open every day’s session with prayer. But who would be the first to pray? In an obvious display of congressional unity, Samuel Adams, a Puritan Congregationalist, nominated an Anglican clergyman to offer the first official prayer. Congress approved his nomination and promptly sent an invitation to the selected minister.⁸

His name was Jacob DuchÉ, and at age thirty-seven, he may have been the most popular preacher in Philadelphia. The Anglican pastor of Philadelphia’s prestigious Christ Church, DuchÉ was the son of a former Philadelphia mayor and brother-in-law to congressional delegate Francis Hopkinson. A graduate of Cambridge University, he was well educated, served as professor of oratory at the College of Philadelphia, and was renowned for his eloquence in the pulpit. The invitation to open Congress with prayer was a measure of his prominence, but carried genuine risk: DuchÉ was a minister in the Church of England, Britain’s official state church, and accepting the invitation could have put him in harm’s way with the British government. He accepted anyway.⁹

The next morning—Wednesday, September 7, 1774 — the pastor appeared before the delegates attired in Anglican clergyman’s robes. When the Congress was called to order, he opened the day’s session with a formal prayer, then followed it by reading from the Bible. The Bible passage DuchÉ read was the Anglican “collect” for the day—the scripture scheduled for that day in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer—Psalm 35:

Plead my cause, OLORD, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help. Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.

Let them...