Who was Aedanus Burke?

Or more reasons why we can't categorize a Founder's religious belief on sect affiliation. 

Check out Mark D.'s post at The New Reform Club on how many of the "non-key" (as in not 1st tier) Founding Fathers get short shrift by scholarly authorities. His post on Deism is good too.

It brings to mind a criticism that the more heterodox Founders get undue attention. And it's true the 2nd tier folks seem more identifiably orthodox than the "key" Founders.

Still, given virtually all of the Founders, both orthodox and heterodox, were associated with churches that had orthodox creeds (which they may or may not have believed in) it's a mistake to fall into the trap of thinking "except for this, they were all that." As in "except for Jefferson and Franklin, they were all Christians." Or "except for a few deists and unitarians, they were all orthodox."

If we want to know more beyond the above noted formal and/or nominal affiliation with churches with orthodox creeds, then an investigation must be done according to a method that looks for every available piece of evidence, finding hopefully smoking guns that are often hard to find. Both sides are subject to this exacting method of scrutiny. Both sides equally share the burden.

There were also hundreds (or more) of Founding Fathers, depending on how we measure. All of the signers of the Declaration and members of the Constitutional Conventional who voted for the Constitution (or perhaps members present but didn't vote for the Constitution, but like some Anti-Federalists, who were against the Constitution, but supported the Bill of Rights). The original federal politicians too.

The name that comes to mind is Aedanus Burke. In James H. Hutson's The Founders and Religion a Book of Quotations it dates his life (1743-1802) and says he was a "South Carolina solider and judge; member of the First Federal Congress, 1789-91."

So this Burke was perhaps not a first or second tier Founder, but one of the many third tier ones. This is what Benjamin Rush said of him:

I have long observed that men may be Deists, and yet be warmly attached to the forms of the Sects in which they have been educated. . . . Mr. Hurt informed me that Judge Burke had assured him that he was made a Roman Catholic and a Deist nearly at the same time by two different priests in one of the colleges in France.

-- Benjamin Rush, ʺCommonplace Book,ʺ July 1792. Corner,Autobiography of Rush, 223–24.

This one quote doesn't "settle" the matter on Judge Burke. Rather it's probative. He had a Roman Catholic background but second hand testimonials of professions of "Deism." And we don't even know what kind of "Deism" this might refer to.

Sandefur on "The Greeks and America's Founding Fathers, part 2"

Check it out here. A taste:

In Part 2 of my series of talks on the influence of the Greeks on America's Founding Fathers, I explain how the Founders learned from the Greeks what not to do, when they wrote the Constitution of the United States.

The Quakers Are the most "Enlightened" of the "Christian" Sects

Riffing off my last post, where I argued anti-creedalism is an American Founding ideal, the sect most associated with such are the Quakers. Creeds are creatures that enforce "orthodoxy." It not necessarily that the political theology of the American Founding was anti-orthodox. But it was one that didn't care too much for "orthodoxy" enforcement.

That, and other attributes, made the Quakers a good faith candidate for "pet religion" of that era. The Quakers were Protestants who just preceded the Enlightenment. But during the period of that era, the leading thinkers sympathized with the Quaker thought and theology they discovered.

The Quakers stressed "the light." The age about which we speak was "the Enlightenment." Perhaps the words took on a slightly different meaning, but the terms "fit." (Sources for Quakers and "the light" abound online if one wants to learn more on their understanding.)

One might wonder why more men who appreciated Quaker theology didn't convert. An interesting social dynamic of that era was America's Founders tended to remain formally and nominally affiliated with the sects in which they were raised for social purposes. But often didn't believe in the official doctrines or creeds of those churches.

The Quakers' stance on pacifism meant they couldn't support the Whigs' war against the Tories. This was an obvious roadblock to American Whigs' full endorsement of Quakerism. Hence, John Dickinson and William Livingston would arguably qualify as "half-Quakers" a term Livingston used to describe himself.

Here is an article published by a George Fox University's Quaker Studies which documents the history of Voltaire's thoughts on the Quakers which terminated in "outright admiration."

Here is from the legendary Alan Charles Kors writing in The American Interest on "Voltaire's England."A taste:

Voltaire opened his Lettres with a survey of English religion, beginning with the Quakers, which, for his French audience, would have been the rough equivalent today of beginning a survey of the United States with the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church or the Hare Krishna movement. He lavished praise upon the Quakers’ commitment to religious tolerance, both in England and, more dramatically, in Pennsylvania, where they had political power. Foremost among the “wise laws” promulgated by William Penn had been “to harm no one for his religion.” Voltaire concluded his discussion of English religion with an account of the tolerant Unitarians, equally mysterious and heretical for his French readers.

Between the letters on the Quakers and Unitarians, Voltaire described the Anglican and Presbyterian establishments. For Voltaire, the Church of England itself, though an established church beset by corruptions that looked large in England (but very small indeed in France), had abandoned its efforts to coerce religious belief. In Voltaire’s view, “An Englishman, as a free man, goes to heaven by whatever path he chooses.” True, the Presbyterian Church, heir to the Calvinism that, Voltaire believed, had prevailed in the darkest times of the 17th century, possessed a clergy that detested all dissent. It was true, also, that the Episcopalian and Presbyterian clergies loathed each other, but in England the people themselves were weary of religious hatreds and persecutions, which mattered more.

Finally, here is from a presentation given by  Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, Professor of American Civilization, Dean for Education and Programs, University Paris 7 on "The Atlantic Enlightenment, in France and the United States, at the time of the War of Independence and the Peace of Paris."

A taste:

Yet American society came gradually to be seen as some kind of enlightened utopia before, during, and immediately after the War of Independence. As I suggested earlier, Quaker Pennsylvania had long appeared as a heaven of simplicity and democratic manners, as opposed to aristocratic France. Voltaire spread this idea, which gained more currency at the time of the War of Independence: in the 1780s a large body of literature was devoted to the New World, and the new nation in particular. Many French travelers to the United States contributed to this literature. In France but also in the rest of Europe, Britain gave way to the United States as a modern political model. Now the French no longer wanted to flee to London to avoid censorship: they dreamt of moving to the United States. A case in point is Jacques-Pierre Brissot, a future revolutionary leader in 1792-1793. He had been fascinated by Britain in the 1780s and repaired to London to avoid political problems in France: there he met with radicals but also with enlightened mainstream political figures such as Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice. He also met with Quakers, then at the forefront of the antislavery fight, and under the influence of famous American Quakers such as Anthony Bénézet.

By 1786, Brissot had been converted to the cause of America, like many French philosophers and journalists. To be enlightened was to be free ( the words light, enlightened and enlightened are to be found obsessively under his pen, as well as free and freedom) and to be free was to be in the United States. Beyond enjoying the kind of liberal institutions enlightened thinkers were hoping for, the United States also made it possible to consider economic prosperity for such lower-middle class publicists as Brissot through its cheap access to land. ...

Christianity Wthout Orthodoxy: William Livingston Might Hold the Key

To unlocking a certain strain of the "Christian" political theology of the American Founding.

While William Livingston was associated with a number of different denominations, he described himself as "more than half a Quaker." He did a satire on the 39 articles of faith of the Anglican church which amounts to an attack on orthodoxy, creeds and clericalism. He also slammed the Athanasian creed which led me to conclude Livingston was a unitarian. But that might have been a bridge too far on my part.

Rather it's more of a reductio ad absurdum of the individualism of biblical Protestantism that leaves it up to him to decide on what the faith means. The concept of Priesthood of all believers. But unlike many evangelical Protestants of today who pick an understanding and then claim all true believers will understand "this" is what the Bible means, and then they endlessly squabble, Livingston understood his approach would naturally lead to dispute and he embraced that reality.

He didn't care what other people believed on the "finer" points of Christianity. That is, he didn't care about "orthodoxy." No need to squabble.

It also "fits" with the individualistic nature of Enlightenment liberalism. Garry Wills' book that dealt with the matter had many inadequacies. But one strength was it noted Quakerism and unitarianism as the kinds of faiths that "fit" the age of Enlightenment which birthed the American Founding.

At least "fit" from the from the perspective of prevailing intellectual thought, ideals, and so on. There were plenty of unthinking masses who belonged to churches with not just orthodox creeds, but orthodox ministers who may have defended them.

Livingston, for instance, became associated with the Presbyterians. But it would be a mistake to conclude he was a TULIP Calvinist who defended the creeds and confessions of that church. In fact, he rejected all of it.

Sandefur: "The Greeks and America's Founding Fathers"

From Timothy Sandefur here. I know the Founders tended to speak highly of Aristotle. And also that the Stoic Roman influence was much stronger than the Greek. But still, it is interesting to understand the qualified extent of the Greek influence.

James Lindley Wilson: "The Declaration of Independence isn’t egalitarian enough"

From Crooked Timber's symposium on Danielle Allen's book here. A taste:

... How confident should we be that the signers’ treatment of one another as equal co-creators of their common life implies any commitment to more universal equality?

One reason I have little confidence in that regard is that, as we all know and as Allen repeatedly acknowledges, many people within the territory of the nascent United States were excluded from the practice of declaring independence, and—to judge from that practice and subsequent political and social practices—from the ideals registered in the Declaration. Black Americans (free and slave), women, Native Americans, and the poorest white men were not included in the process of establishing the Continental Congress, the collective writing of the Declaration, or the implementation of liberal rights and political “equality.” My point in reminding us of this fact is not to condemn the drafters of the Declaration for acting wrongly in engaging in such exclusion (though wrong it was), nor to deny them credit for the political good they did do, through the Declaration and otherwise. The point is that their endorsement, sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit, of the exclusion must shape our interpretation of the ideals expressed and embodied in the Declaration itself.

Bonnie Kristian on Trump and American Civil Religion

At the American Conservative here. A taste:

... How is this happening? How is the heir of the Moral Majority endorsing a twice-divorced former strip club owner? How is Trump so appealing to what is supposed to be a Christian nation?
 
And it is in precisely that last phrase—“Christian nation”—the answer may be found: America’s entrenched, pseudo-Christian civil religion is the primary culprit here. President Trump is the due result of our theologically vacant imperial cult, which in the guise of orthodoxy worships only the power of the state.

[...]

...  This sort of ultimatum is right at home in a civil religion that facilitates unthinking Christian loyalty to the state by means of a clever syncretism: If America is “under God”—if the United States becomes the “city on a hill”—we needn’t worry about obeying God rather than men. It’s all one and the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph is idolatrously mutated into an American tribal deity.

Legal Insurrection Quotes Allan Bloom on America

Just two days ago here. A taste, quoting Bloom:

Contrary to much contemporary wisdom, the United States has one of the longest uninterrupted political traditions of any nation in the world. What is more, that tradition is unambiguous; its meaning is articulated in simple, rational speech that is immediately comprehensible and powerfully persuasive to all normal human beings. America tells one story: the unbroken, ineluctable progress of freedom and equality. From its first settlers and its political foundings on, there has been no dispute that freedom and equality are the essence of justice for us. No one serious or notable has stood outside this consensus…All significant political disputes have been about the meaning of freedom and equality, not about their rightness…

But the unity, grandeur and attendant folklore of the founding heritage was attacked from so many directions in the last half-century that it gradually disappeared from daily life and from textbooks. It all began to seem like Washington and the cherry tree—not the sort of thing to teach children seriously…The leading ideas of the Declaration began to be understood as eighteenth-century myths or ideologies. Historicism, in Carl Becker’s version (The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas, 1922) both cast doubt on the truth of the natural rights teaching and optimistically promised that it would provide a substitute. Similarly Dewey’s pragmatism—the method of science as the method of democracy, individual growth without limits, especially natural limits—saw the past as radically imperfect and regarded our history as irrelevant or as a hindrance to rational analysis of our present. Then there was Marxist debunking of the Charles Beard variety, trying to demonstrate that there was no public spirit, only private concern for property, in the Founding Fathers, thus weakening our convictions of the truth or superiority of American principles and our heroes (An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, 1913). Then the Southern historians and writers avenged the victory of the antislavery Union by providing low motives for the North (incorporating European critiques of commerce and technology) and idealizing the South’s way of life. Finally, in curious harmony with the Southerners, the radicals in the civil rights movement succeeded in promoting a popular conviction that the Founding was, and the American principles are, racist…

Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.

The ellipses [...] are from Legal Insurrection, not mine. 

Sully is Back

Check it out here. I'm not posting this because of the political points he's trying to score (that's why you won't see them excerpted); rather for Dr. Sullivan's understanding of Plato. A taste:

As this dystopian election campaign has unfolded, my mind keeps being tugged by a passage in Plato’s Republic. It has unsettled — even surprised — me from the moment I first read it in graduate school. The passage is from the part of the dialogue where Socrates and his friends are talking about the nature of different political systems, how they change over time, and how one can slowly evolve into another. And Socrates seemed pretty clear on one sobering point: that “tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy.” What did Plato mean by that? Democracy, for him, I discovered, was a political system of maximal freedom and equality, where every lifestyle is allowed and public offices are filled by a lottery. And the longer a democracy lasted, Plato argued, the more democratic it would become. Its freedoms would multiply; its equality spread. Deference to any sort of authority would wither; tolerance of any kind of inequality would come under intense threat; and multiculturalism and sexual freedom would create a city or a country like “a many-colored cloak decorated in all hues.”

This rainbow-flag polity, Plato argues, is, for many people, the fairest of regimes. The freedom in that democracy has to be experienced to be believed — with shame and privilege in particular emerging over time as anathema. But it is inherently unstable. As the authority of elites fades, as Establishment values cede to popular ones, views and identities can become so magnificently diverse as to be mutually uncomprehending. And when all the barriers to equality, formal and informal, have been removed; when everyone is equal; when elites are despised and full license is established to do “whatever one wants,” you arrive at what might be called late-stage democracy. There is no kowtowing to authority here, let alone to political experience or expertise.

The very rich come under attack, as inequality becomes increasingly intolerable. Patriarchy is also dismantled: “We almost forgot to mention the extent of the law of equality and of freedom in the relations of women with men and men with women.” Family hierarchies are inverted: “A father habituates himself to be like his child and fear his sons, and a son habituates himself to be like his father and to have no shame before or fear of his parents.” In classrooms, “as the teacher ... is frightened of the pupils and fawns on them, so the students make light of their teachers.” Animals are regarded as equal to humans; the rich mingle freely with the poor in the streets and try to blend in. The foreigner is equal to the citizen.

And it is when a democracy has ripened as fully as this, Plato argues, that a would-be tyrant will often seize his moment. ...

Now, this is a particular understanding of Plato. It's Sullivan saying what Plato means. Sullivan, of course studied Plato in graduate school with Harvey Mansfield (at Harvard) and what Sullivan writes above is an understanding that comes from that -- the Straussian -- school. As in, this is what Plato was really (esoterically) trying to get at.

Such a reading is quite contentious. It may be correct. But it's not without its controversy. From an article in the Boston Globe:

Thomas Fleming, editor of the ... journal Chronicles [notes]:''Exoteric Straussians are taught to repeat mantras about democracy, liberty, and republican government which the inner-circle Straussians don't appear to hold to. One of Allan Bloom's students told me that Professor Bloom had taught them that Plato was just an American-style democrat. This is just absurd. Plato taught the rule of a tiny elite, which is what the Straussians actually believe.''

I'm feeling the "Plato was an American-style democrat" notion in Sullivan's piece. Here is one place where Sullivan I think gets Plato and America partially wrong:

Part of American democracy’s stability is owed to the fact that the Founding Fathers had read their Plato. To guard our democracy from the tyranny of the majority and the passions of the mob, they constructed large, hefty barriers between the popular will and the exercise of power.

The second sentence is accurate. The first sentence needs to be unpacked. Did the Founding Fathers read Plato?  Sure. But it's almost certainly not the case that they understood him the way Sullivan and the Straussians do. We could substitute "Plato" for "Hobbes." As in "[p]art of American democracy’s stability is owed to the fact that the Founding Fathers had read their Hobbes." 

The Founding Fathers tended to cite both Plato and Hobbes negatively. They cited Locke positively; they cited a great deal of Ancient Roman Stoic types positively. And even though the Ancient Greek influence on the American Founding was not nearly as evident as the Ancient Roman influence, they tended to cite Aristotle positively.

The Straussians have notably posited that Locke's teachings were esoterically Hobbesian. So if Hobbes influenced the American Founding it was because his teachings were smuggled in by Locke. 

Likewise if Plato had any kind of influence on the American Founding it was because some other ancient philosopher whom they respected -- i.e., Aristotle, Socrates -- smuggled Plato's message in as well.

Crooked Timber Symposium on Danielle Allen's Book

I am remiss to say that I missed this last year when it was done. But we can all enjoy it now. At American Creation look for more excerpts from the individual contributors' posts.

The seminar on Danielle Allen’s recent book, Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, which is available from Powells, Amazon and Barnes and Noble is now concluded. The entire seminar can be found at this link. ...