Introduction
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a fitting occasion to reflect upon one of the defining features of America: religious liberty. As an American Presbyterian myself, I am especially interested in how mainline Presbyterians negotiated the terrain of religious liberty in America, particularly from the Founding through Reconstruction. In many ways, Presbyterians and religious liberty are strange bedfellows. There is a reason why Jefferson despised the former out of his love for the latter. The “threatening cloud of fanaticism” must be “owing to the growth of Presbyterianism.” He described Presbyterians as “advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable & prone to denunciation.” The harmony between the various denominations did not exist where “Presbyterianism prevails undividedly” because their “ambition and tyranny would tolerate no rival if they had power.” Jefferson perceived the Presbyterians as “systematical in grasping at an ascendancy over all other sects.”11. Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, November 2, 1822. Jefferson may be forgiven for his prejudices. Historically, Presbyterians were known for their intolerance. One need only read Rutherford’s A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience to see why “Presbyterian” might have taken the form of a swear-word in Jefferson’s vocabulary.
John Witherspoon
In reality, various strands of American Presbyterians held a diversity of views. It is true that some dissenting Presbyterians could not be unreasonably charged with fanaticism. These dissenters opposed the early republic’s settlement on religion in the strongest terms, refusing to vote or hold offices that required an oath to the Constitution. “Since Messiah is the Prince of the kings of the earth,” preached James Renwick Willson, “the national constitution is sinful, in refusing this allegiance.”22. James Renwick Willson, “Prince Messiah’s Claims to Dominion Over All Governments: And the Disregard of His Authority by the United States in the Federal Constitution” (1832), 23. Wilson would often use his prayers before the New York Legislature to advance his opposition in the most strident terms. In response, the Legislature banned him from praying before their assemblies—and Wilson was burned in effigy before the State House door.33. W. Melancthon Glasgow, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America (Hill & Harvey, 1888), 726. However, the Southern Presbyterians of Virginia supported Jefferson’s arrangement with their Hanover Memorials, declaring “there is no argument in favor of establishing the Christian religion but what may be pleaded, with equal propriety, for establishing the tenets of Mahomed.”44. Charles F. James, Documentary History of the Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia (J.P. Bell Company, 1900), 223. However, the majority position—at least among the mainline Presbyterians of the Middle States—was articulated by men like John Witherspoon, Founding Father and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Witherspoon did not deny the permissibility (and even desirability) of state-established churches. However, he also affirmed that such churches must be established according to republican principles. In his words:
Many are of opinion, that, besides all this, the magistrate ought to make public provision for the worship of God, in such manner as is agreeable to the great body of the society; though, at the same time, all who dissent from it are fully tolerated. And, indeed, there seems to be a good deal of reason for it.55. The Works of John Witherspoon (1815), 7.121.
To those who decried established churches as anti-Christian, Witherspoon said:
I do not see how this sentiment can be supported, either from Scripture or reason, as it would seem to make it impossible for the kingdoms of this world, to become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, or for kings to become nursing fathers, and queens nursing mothers to the church; but so far I shall readily admit, that an intolerant establishment, and all tyranny over the conscience, partakes of an anti-Christian spirit.
Moreover, he affirmed the necessity of the magistrate to set a positive example of piety and promote true religion among the people, but he also asserted the duty of the magistrate to “defend the rights of conscience” and “tolerate all in their religious sentiments.” Nevertheless, “in all polished nations,” there are punishments for transgressions of the “moral laws,” even transgressions “against God.”66. Witherspoon, Works, 8.726, 7.125.
Witherspoon’s position was codified in the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA). On the one hand, the mainline Presbyterians declared that they did not “even wish to see any religious constitution aided by the civil power, further than may be necessary for protection and security, and, at the same time, equal and common to all others.”77. The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America Containing the Confession of Faith, the Catechisms, the Government and Discipline, and the Directory for the Worship of God (Synod of New York and Philadelphia, 1788), CXXXIV. Moreover, “as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest.” The Constitution also affirmed protection for non-Christians:
It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretence of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever.
Nevertheless, the American government was recognized as a “Christian government.” The magistrate was also saddled with the duty to “maintain piety” among the people “according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth.” It even included in its exposition of the Lord’s Prayer the petition that the church be “countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate,” a phrase which suggested state financing. Indeed, the Constitution went even further, affirming that magistrates—along with all men—were commanded by the Second Commandment to disapprove, detest, and oppose “all false worship,” and even remove it along with “all monuments of idolatry.”88. The Constitution, 35, 79, 105, 213. However, Witherspoon and his Presbyterian compatriots no longer required ministers to affirm that “tolerating a false religion” is a sin.99. Compare The Constitution pages 79-80 with the original version of the Westminster Confession. As we will see below, future generations of American Presbyterians would face pressure to clarify how these apparent tensions may be synthesized into a coherent public policy. However, at the time, the Constitution of the PCUSA was seen as conciliatory and received without controversy, with a few exceptions. The dissenting Presbyterians, zealous for an official recognition of Christ’s Lordship over the federal government, continued their protest, declining to join the new national Presbyterian church. They remained separate from the mainline, but national crises in the future would bring dissenters and mainliners together into a political coalition.
The Constitution and Disestablishment
One may still wonder how the Constitution of the PCUSA did not spark further controversy. By modern standards, it appears quite illiberal, failing to reach the heights of religious liberty envisioned by the Founders. However, this assessment betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the religious settlement of the early American republic. Justice Joseph Story proves helpful in this regard. Story was nominated to the Supreme Court by James Madison in 1811. In 1832, Story published an influential commentary on the United States Constitution, including a discussion of the original meaning of the First Amendment. In this commentary, Story distinguishes between three different types of religious establishments:
Three cases may easily be supposed. One, where a government affords aid to a particular religion, leaving all persons free to adopt any other; another, where it creates an ecclesiastical establishment for the propagation of the doctrines of a particular sect of that religion, leaving a like freedom to all others; and a third, where it creates such an establishment, and excludes all persons, not belonging to it, either wholly, or in part, from any participation in the public honors, trusts, emoluments, privileges, and immunities of the state.1010. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1833), 3.723.
After Independence, different states took different positions along the spectrum of these views. The cases where religious toleration and liberty were secured are well known. Here, it is worth noting the more illiberal elements.1111. For a discussion of the history of the various state constitutions, see Carl Esbeck and Jonathan Den Hartog, Disestablishment and Religious Dissent: Church-State Relations in the New American States, 1776-1833 (University of Missouri, 2019). Some states, like Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, required a simple confession of Christian faith in order to serve in public office. Other states, like Georgia, required all representatives to be Protestant. In New England, states like Massachusetts established Congregationalism as the official church of the state. New Jersey went so far as to only guarantee civil rights to Protestants. Until 1790, South Carolina only offered toleration to religious societies that were monotheistic, acknowledged a future state of rewards and punishments, and believed that God must be worshiped in public. Along similar lines, Connecticut had an especially strict law against blasphemy on the books, though the extent of its enforcement is unclear. If you had been taught Christianity, but you were then convicted of teaching, speaking, or writing in favor of atheism, anti-Trinitarianism, polytheism, or denying the truth of Christianity or the authority of the Scriptures, you would be “incapable to have or enjoy any offices or employments, ecclesiastical, civil or military, or any part in them, or profit by them: And the offices, places and employments enjoyed by such persons at their conviction, shall be void.” Moreover, if you were convicted a second time, then you would be “disabled to sue, prosecute, plead, or maintain any action or information in law or equity; or be guardian of any child, or executor of any will, or administrator of any estate.”1212. The Public Statute Laws of the State of Connecticut (The General Assembly, 1808), 296.
In short, there was diversity among the various states regarding how religion ought to be regulated by the state. Moreover, debate was passionate, ongoing, and unsettled. The purpose of the First Amendment, then, was to ensure that those disputes did not rise to the federal level and fracture the federated union. Congress would be forbidden from passing any laws related to a religious establishment or prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Those powers (according to the Tenth Amendment) would remain with the states.
Even Thomas Jefferson acknowledged this reading of the First Amendment in his second inaugural address:
In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken, on no occasion, to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them, as the constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of state or church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.1313. Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805.
This reading of the First Amendment has significant import. It was not intended to make the government (federal or otherwise) neutral on religious matters. As Story notes, “An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.” Instead,
The real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.
In other words, the purpose of religious liberty as enshrined in the First Amendment was not to eliminate all state support of Christianity. As Story notes, the American colonies “did openly, by the whole course of its laws and institutions, support and sustain, in some form, the Christian religion.” Moreover, “this has continued to be the case in some of the states down to the present period, without the slightest suspicion, that it was against the principles of public law, or republican liberty.” Indeed, “in a republic, there would seem to be a peculiar propriety in viewing the Christian religion, as the great basis, on which it must rest for its support and permanence.”1414. Story, Commentaries, 3.724-728.
By and large, the American Presbyterians were satisfied with the religious settlement of the early republic—and many of them championed it. In their view, America was and ought to be a Christian nation, but any legislation concerning religion per se belonged to the states, not the federal government.1515. See Ashbel Green, “Obedience to the Laws of God, The Sure and Indispensable Defense of Nations” (1798).
The constitutional debates did not leave the states unaffected. The arguments surrounding the First Amendment left many wondering about the propriety of even the states exercising their constitutionally protected power to sponsor churches. Increasingly, those that had maintained their financial support of churches began to disestablish. It is worth noting that from time immemorial, the church had been (one way or another) financially supported by the state. To cut the church loose from state sponsorship was a radical move. Many Presbyterians enthusiastically supported it, but not all shared the same level of confidence in the outcomes. Archibald Alexander strikes a melancholy tone. “It may be laid down as a reasonable expectation that sincere Christians will be disposed to support their ministers,” Alexander wrote. However, “people are not generally pious in any country.” What if the people did not properly support churches with their charitable giving? Then perhaps “it is the duty of the civil authority to provide for the maintenance of religion by law.” Indeed, disestablishment was a “grand experiment,” and “awful forebodings alternate with our most sanguine hopes.” However, Alexander sensed that “we must go forward” because “to talk of a union of church and state in this country” was “folly in the extreme.” “No such event can possibly take place,” said Alexander, “until the country undergoes a revolution greater than has been experienced on this side of the Atlantic.”1616. Archibald Alexander, “The Church Establishment of England,” The Biblical Repository 4 (October 1834), 543.
Under different conditions, disestablishment could have led to disastrous consequences, but at the time, the Protestant bones of the American people proved strong enough to bear the new weight placed upon them. The people did support the churches in their charitable giving. In fact, voluntary religious associations funded by charity exploded in size and number, from missionary endeavors to Bible societies.
Despite disestablishment, America remained a stalwart Christian society through its institutions, from voluntary associations and public schools to state legislatures and judiciaries. Hence, for all its wide-ranging influences, “the United States Constitution’s disestablishment did not secularize society, nor did it remove institutional Christianity from the civic, state educational, or political sphere,” as Miles Smith has shown.1717. Miles Smith, Religion & Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War (Davenant Press, 2024), 1. In fact, the United States continued “protecting and even perpetuating institutional—usually but not always Protestant—Christianity through federal and state courts, state colleges and institutions, state legislatures, and executive proclamations from governors and presidents, and through state cooperation with religious institutions and Protestant divines.” In short, advocates for disestablishment resisted “subordinating the American republic to a church,” but they also “maintained Christian principles in their nation’s various societies and political institutions.”1818. Smith, Religion & Republic, XXV, 2. At root, disestablishment was the ascendency of the laity over the clergy.
Charles Hodge and Joshua McIlvaine
As the 1800s progressed, two institutions, in particular, were seen as especially important: Christian instruction in publicly funded schools and laws against breaking the Sabbath. Charles Hodge, for example, was an adamant defender of both institutions. “When a state resolves that religious instruction shall be banished from the schools and other literary institutions,” he wrote, “it virtually resolves on self-destruction.” Indeed, “the banishment of religious influence from our schools is impossible.”1919. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Hendrickson, 2020), 3.353. The question was not whether the schools should teach religion, but which religion would be taught: “If you banish Christianity from the schools, you thereby render them infidel.” Hodge defended the Sabbath with no less verve: “If the Sabbath, therefore, be abolished, the fountain of life for the people will be sealed.” Hence, “If the government should disregard the Sabbath” and “direct that the custom-houses, the courts of law, and the legislative halls should be open on the Lord’s Day, and public business be transacted as on other days, it would be an act of tyranny, which would justify rebellion.” In effect, disregard of the Sabbath amounts to demanding that “the government should be conducted on the principle that Christianity is false.” By contrast, Hodge argues that “the organic life, the institutions, laws, and official action of the government, whether that action be legislative, judicial, or executive, is, and of right should be, and in fact must be, in accordance with the principles of Protestant Christianity.”2020. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 343, 346-347, 356.
What explains the intensity of Hodge? While America remained demographically homogeneous in its primarily Anglo-Protestant stock, the social institutions central to its national way of life remained undisturbed. However, starting in the 1840s, the nation began to experience its first wave of mass immigration. The Irish and Germans began flooding into America, bringing with them both “papism” and “atheism.” It was these “imported atheists and infidels” that raised Hodge’s ire.2121. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 340, 343.
According to Hodge, these new citizens appealed to the “separation of the Church and the State” to mount their attack against Sabbath laws. “All citizens have equal rights irrespective of their religious opinions,” so the argument went. Therefore, “it is an infringement of those rights if one class of the people are required to conform their conduct to the religious opinions of another class.” Hence, “why should Jews, Mohammedans, or infidels be required to respect the Christian Sabbath?” In response, Hodge conceded that in America (1) all citizens are equal before the law; (2) no form of religion can be established or one denomination shown preference above the rest; (3) no man can be forced to support any church or religious institution; and (4) every man has the liberty to live according to his convictions “provided he does not violate the law of the land.” Nevertheless, Hodge argued that the American government is also under divine obligation to enact and enforce civil laws that conform to God’s moral law. Moreover, America was founded by Protestants and continued to be demographically dominated by Protestants. According to the facts of the matter, America simply was a “Christian and Protestant Nation.” Hence, “the demands of those who require that religion, and especially Christianity, should be ignored in our national, state, and municipal laws, are not only unreasonable, but they are in the highest degree unjust and tyrannical.”2222. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 341, 346. It would necessitate America to deny its national identity for the sake of catering to the sentiments of “foreign-born citizens.”
Hodge was not alone in his passionate defense of American religious life against its opponents. Similar notes were sounded by Joshua McIlvaine. McIlvaine was an important 19th-century Presbyterian, one who is, sadly, understudied. He was a graduate of Princeton College and Princeton Seminary, a distinguished Presbyterian pastor, and respected scholar. He gave two series of especially noteworthy lectures, one at the Smithsonian Institution and the other at the University of Pennsylvania. His longest held post was a professorship at his alma mater, Princeton College. His 1859 essay, “A Nation’s Right to Worship God,” marshalled a forceful argument for a Christian America. The zenith of the discourse is startling. He addresses the “enemies of Christianity,” including the “Jew, Pagan, Mormon, Mohammedan, or Infidel.” He says Christians will defend “with our blood” the “rights, liberties, and blessings you can enjoy in consistency with this our Christian character as a nation.” However, he notes how these non-Christians now “demand in the name of religious freedom, as a right of your consciences,” that America not conduct itself as a Christian nation.2323. Joshua McIlvaine, “A Nation’s Right to Worship God,” The Princeton Review No 4 (October 1859), 695. In response, McIlvaine says:
We also have a conscience, which binds us by the most sacred of all obligations, to worship our God in our most solemn and significant national acts, and to educate our children in our Christian faith. We will defend and maintain our sovereign right to do this against the world in arms. Beware how you touch it. You cannot be gratified in this thing. Set your hearts at rest. And if you cannot rest, go form a nation and a state where you can find a place, and see if infidelity will do for you what the Christian religion has done for us.2424. McIlvaine, “A Nation’s Right,” 696.
Notice the concept at the center of the dispute: liberty of conscience. In a previous generation, Witherspoon had argued “the magistrate ought to defend the rights of conscience.” He construed this responsibility as a critical means by which the magistrate may “promote true religion.”2525. Witherspoon, Works, 7.118-119. Now, however, liberty of conscience was being cited as a reason why the government ought not to promote true religion. McIlvaine points out the essence of the dilemma: the conscience of one group demands the Christian God be worshiped and obeyed in all national acts, but the conscience of other groups demands the Christian God not be so worshiped and obeyed. In this conflict, the government is not free to remain neutral because religious neutrality is the point at issue. It must pick a side.
The National Reform Association
McIlvaine was a minister in the mainline Presbyterian church, but he joined with the dissenting Presbyterians in advancing a political project for which they had long advocated: a Christian amendment to the United States Constitution. In 1864, the National Reform Association was founded for just such a purpose. That same year, McIlvaine chaired the delegation appointed to meet with President Lincoln and presented to him the following amendment:
We, the people of the United States, humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Governor among the nations, and His revealed Will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government, and in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the inalienable rights and the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to ourselves, our posterity, and all the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.2626. “Proposed Amendment to the Constitution.” See also Jerome Copulsky, American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order (Yale University Press, 2024), chapter 4.
Formally, Lincoln replied as follows:
The general aspect of your movement I cordially approve. In regard to particulars I must ask time to deliberate, as the work of amending the Constitution should not be done hastily. I will carefully examine your paper in order more fully to comprehend its contents than is possible from merely hearing it read, and will take such action upon it as my responsibility to our Maker and our country demands.2727. “Proposed Amendment.”
The assassination of Lincoln dashed any hopes of the President championing the amendment. However, the National Reform Association continued its advocacy, arguing for Sabbath laws, Christian instruction in public schools, and its principal objective meant to lay the legal foundation for the rest of their policies: the amendment.
McIlvaine was not the only mainline Presbyterian to join the Association. Other mainliners participated as well, including Charles Hodge and his son A.A. Hodge. In fact, the effort received enough support from the mainline Presbyterians that their General Assembly adopted the following overture in 1864:
Whereas, Almighty God, the God of nations, is the head and source of all authority and power in civil government, and nations as such are the subjects of his moral laws, and his revealed will is the supreme law of national life: whereas, the Christian and loyal people of our country are everywhere beseeching God to interpose for our deliverance as a nation from the assaults of a most groundless and wicked rebellion, and to establish and maintain the national unity and authority: and whereas, resolutions have already passed the Senate of the United States, and are pending in the House of Representatives, recommending amendment of the National Constitution in several other particulars. Therefore,
Resolved, That it is our solemn national duty so to amend our fundamental and organic law, that the preamble of the National Constitution shall read in substance as follows: “We the people of the United States, [humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Governor among the nations, and His revealed Will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government, and] in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure [the inalienable rights and] the blessings of [life,] liberty, [and the pursuit of happiness,] to ourselves, our posterity, [and all the people,] do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
And, further,
Resolved, That this General Assembly recommend to all the people in the congregations under its care to memorialize Congress upon this subject.2828. Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1864), 315. A few years earlier, James Henley Thornwell overtured the General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian church to adopt a similar amendment. However, he retracted the overture before it went up for a vote. See “Relation of the State to Christ” in The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell: Volume 4 (Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1873), 549-556.
Furthermore, it was not merely the clergy who supported the movement. Presbyterian Supreme Court Justice William Strong served as president of the National Reform Association. In his 1872 “Call for a National Convention,” Strong said “a nation is under obligations to acknowledge God as the author of its existence and the source of its authority, Jesus Christ as its ruler, and the Bible as the fountain of its laws and the supreme rule of its conduct.” The next year, in his 1873 call for a convention, Strong stated why a Christian amendment was necessary. He noted those who “assail the Bible in the Schools, Sabbath Laws, Laws against Polygamy, and every similar element of our Christian civilization.” They cite as the basis of their arguments “the Constitution of the United States, which acknowledges neither God nor the Bible.” Hence, “the assailants must be met at their own point of attack.” Indeed, “Shall we obliterate every Christian feature from existing institutions?” Therefore, “let the acknowledgment of God and the Bible be inserted in the Constitution.”2929. Proceedings of the National Convention to Secure the Religious Amendment of the Constitution of the United States (1873), 1-2.
When Strong’s calls for this national convention went out, they included the names of prominent men serving as an endorsement and indication of their support. In 1873, the call included McIlvaine and Charles Hodge, plus three governors and one lieutenant-governor, six judges, five public education officials, eleven college and university professors, and fifteen college and university presidents. The clergy were well represented as well with 46 names, including Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Dutch Reformed, Episcopalians, Methodists, and Baptists.3030. Proceedings of 1873, 2-4.
McIlvaine was one of the strongest voices and most active members of the National Reform Association. At the 1873 convention, he gave one of the keynote addresses. He relates the idea of a Christian amendment to two other important questions: the intention of the Founding Fathers and the separation of church and state. In his words, “I do not think that the framers of it were all infidels, or hated morality.” However, “the people came from countries where the church and the state had been united in such a manner as to degrade and oppress.” In response, “the representatives of the people having such powerful prejudices guarded against such union by leaving out of the expression of the national life all reference to the church.” In this way, “our fathers went to the opposite extreme.” Indeed, “when we have taken religion out of our political life, the salt is taken away, and it is left to irretrievable corruption.” McIlvaine went even further: “When in our national acts we fail to recognize our national obligations to God, it seems to me that we sin as a nation.”3131. Proceedings of 1873, 23-24. Emphasis in original.
Earlier in the 19th-century, it was the dissenting Presbyterians of the “fanatical” sort who decried the Constitution as sinful. Now, a mainline Presbyterian lodged the same accusation. The audience did not burn this Presbyterian in effigy but received his words with approbation. Judges, governors, educators, and ministers across Protestant lines desired to rectify what they now saw as an error (if not worse) in the United States Constitution. The 19th-century was a tumultuous century. Mormonism, mass immigration, civil war—all these conditions and more ate away the social fabric that had held America together as a Christian nation. By the Reconstruction Era, Presbyterians who held Witherspoon’s moderate position now perceived that it was unsustainable without a change to the founding documents of the nation. It was no longer reasonable for them to believe that Christian institutionalism (the state legislatures, the judiciary, public schools, the voluntary associations) could maintain the Christian character of America without the support of the federal government. In the words of McIlvaine: “If we admit these extreme consequences of the idea of individual religious liberty, we give the death-blow to national unity, liberty, and responsibility.” Indeed, it would “overthrow all our free institutions.”3232. McIlvaine, “A Nation’s Right,” 694.
The Christian amendment would receive support from US Senators. However, counter organizations like the National Liberal League continued to combat the National Reform Association—and the opposition won the day. The amendment never made it out of the Senate.
The demographics of America had changed, and in a republic, when the people change, the laws change, often by first giving the current laws new meanings and applications before finally changing the laws themselves. On the surface, advocating for a constitutional amendment seemed like the right course of action for the Presbyterians to stem the tide, but the reason the amendment was needed was the very same reason it could not pass: the people had changed. Perhaps many of the Christians at the Founding who had argued against a recognition of God, Christ, and the Scriptures in the Constitution would have changed their minds had they the gift of clairvoyance, foreseeing the demographic shifts that threatened to erode their Protestant social order. With the requisite prophetic powers, perhaps the mainline Presbyterians who passed over these absences would have raised their voices. Perhaps both groups would have reversed course. By the Reconstruction Era, these were all vain speculations. When the Presbyterians felt they needed an amendment the most, they could not garner the necessary support.
Conclusion
We may draw a few conclusions about American Presbyterianism from this narrative of the 19th century. First, we see convictions shared between prominent Presbyterians of various stripes: mainline and dissenters, clergy and laymen. Second, these convictions amounted to an affirmation that human governments must recognize that they are responsible to God, that Jesus Christ is their appointed ruler, and that all their civil laws must conform to the authority of Scripture.3333. See Fred J. Hood, Reformed America: The Middle and Southern States, 1783-1837 (University of Alabama, 1980), 88. Third, we see that these Presbyterians held to religious liberty (liberty of conscience) and the separation of church and state. But for them, neither of these principles contradicted the right of the government to instruct citizens in the Christian faith (via public schools), enforce Christian laws (like Sabbath laws), or take similar actions as a self-consciously Christian government. For Presbyterians and Protestants today, it remains for us to evaluate the validity of their arguments and the coherence of their models. Were they right? Can Christian government fit together with liberty of conscience and the separation of church and state? But before we evaluate, we must read to understand.
