"In the Hands of a Good Providence": Religion in the Life of George Washington

9: Church and State: Washington's Vision for America

wo themes run through George Washington’s vision of the role of religion in American life: the need to reduce the divisions caused by religious differences and the need to encourage the unifying aspects of religion.1 Especially in his last quarter century, as he struggled to unite thirteen often provincial and fractious colonies into one united whole, toleration of differing religious traditions, both privately by individuals and publicly by the government, was something he idealistically saw, and heartily approved of, as a unique and basic quality of the new United States. It can also be seen as an extension of the beliefs he was likely to have been taught as a child and had seen his elder brother push in the Virginia legislature. Washington, however, went past support of mere toleration to take up the cause of religious freedom, where the only being to whom a citizen had to answer in terms of his religious beliefs, or lack thereof, was God. Looking back on history, he could see what a divisive force religion had often been in the past. Writing to a correspondent in Ireland about the unhappy experiences of that country, he expressed the opinion that “Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind those which are caused by a difference of sentiment in Religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing and ought most to be deprecated.” He went on to say that he hoped “the enlightened & liberal policy which has marked the present age” would be enough to have “at least reconciled Christians  church and state Washington’s Vision for America “In the Hands of a Good Providence” 140 of every denomination so far that we should never again see their religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of Society.”2 Washington’s idealism on this score extended well beyond fellow Christians . He also knew just how rare this American experiment in religious liberty was. As he stated to the Jewish communities in several large American cities early in his presidency, “The liberal sentiment towards each other which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this country stands unrivalled in the history of nations.”3 Along with guarantees of liberty of conscience, which would protect the new country from the religious conflicts that had marked past centuries in Europe, Washington also felt that religion could be a unifying force. Without a citizenry that had internalized a strict moral code, democracy could easily descend into anarchy, and as Washington reminded his countrymen in his Farewell Address, not even an educated citizenry— and Washington was a man who placed a high value on education—could make up for a lack of religion in people’s lives: “Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”4 Those who might have disagreed with Washington on this point had only to look at the experience of Revolutionary France, anticlerical and antireligious as it was, to see the dangers inherent in disregarding his advice. Throughout his public career, he encouraged his fellow citizens in the practice of their religious beliefs and assured them of their right to do so.5 Given the melding of religion and political life in eighteenth-century America, it is not surprising that, early in Washington’s public career, his emphasis was on the unifying aspects of religion. During the French and Indian War, Washington tried unsuccessfully to get a chaplain assigned to his unit on the frontier, at the expense of the colony of Virginia. The day after Washington finished building Fort Necessity in the spring of 1754 was a Sunday. The twenty-two-year-old noted in his diary that two or three families of Shawnee Indians had arrived that day and that, although there was no chaplain, “We had Prayers in the Fort.”6 He apparently wrote a letter, which has since been lost, to his mentor, Col. William Fairfax of Belvoir Plantation, about his experiences that week, leading Fairfax to write in response to learning about the service: church and state 141 I will not doubt your having public Prayers in the Camp especially when the Indian Familys were your Guests, that They seeing...