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Church and State in the Early Republic: The Covenanters' Radical Critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2015

Robert Emery
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Extract

Constitutional scholars pay particular attention to the historical context of the First Amendment, to the relationship between the state and religion in the early republic. Missing from this academic examination of church-state history, however, is any serious consideration of the views of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, popularly known as the Covenanters, views that challenged the fundamental presuppositions of the United States Constitution, both as established in the early national period and as applied today. A typical modern American, citizen or scholar, cannot help but be startled by a coherent, closely reasoned body of doctrine that trenchantly criticizes such fundamental American assumptions as government by consent of the governed or the free exercise of religion. Covenanter criticism of the church-state relations not only presents a model of church and state radically different from today's conventional American theories, but also throws light on the American paradigm as it existed during its developmental period. Reformed Presbyterians of the early republic criticized the federal Constitution from a world view so radically different from that of the founders that their criticisms highlight aspects of the generally accepted constitutional regime in ways that conventional constitutional scholars have scarcely considered.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , 2009 , pp. 487 - 501
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2009

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References

1. For a recent survey of the literature, see Symposium: the (Re)Turn to History in Religion Clause Law and Scholarship, 81 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1697 (2006)Google Scholar.

2. The above statements are truisms of Scottish history. For a convenient summary, see Mackie, John D., A History of Scotland chs. 7, 10-14 (2d ed., Dorsett Press 1978)Google Scholar.

3. For a good overview of covenanter history and ideals, see Vos, Johannes Geerhardus, The Scottish Covenanters: Their Origins, History, and Distinctive Doctrines (Blue Banner Productions 1998)Google Scholar.

4. For the text of the National Covenant, see Hewison, Jamesking, The Covenanters: A History of the Church in Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution vol. 1, 472 (J. Smith 1913)Google Scholar.

5. Mackie, supra note 2, at 201-05.

6. For the text of the Solemn League, see Hewison, supra note 4, at 479.

7. Mackie, supra note 2, at 211-15.

8. Vallance, Edward, Revolutionary England and the National Covenant: State Oaths, Protestantism and the Political Nation, 1553-1682, at 108 (Boydell Press 2005)Google Scholar.

9. Id. at 183-84.

10. Vos, supra note 3, at 194.

11. Id. at 134-35.

12. Id. at 143-47.

13. Id. at 138-69.

14. Carson, David M., Transplanted to America: A Popular History of the American Covenanters To 1871, at 9–10 (Crown & Covenant Publications n.d.)Google Scholar.

15. For the covenanting zeal, millenarian expectation, and anti-monarchical conviction that motivated covenanter involvement in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, see Mcbride, Ian R., Scripture Politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish Radicalism in the Late Eighteenth Century 79-83, 201 (Oxford Univ. Press 1998)Google Scholar.

16. Carson, supra note 14, at 17-19.

17. In doing so, Wylie drew on the ideas of a fellow refugee, the Rev. James McKinney: id. at 17-19. The writings of a number of Wylie's other colleagues, such as Alexander McLeod, amplified his exposition.

18. The reprint of Wylie's work used here is Rev. Wylie, Samuel B. A.M., The two Sons of Oil; or, the Faithful Witness for Magistracy and Ministry Upon a Scriptural Basis (Wm. S. Young 1850. The title is a literal translation of Zech 4:14Google Scholar.

19. Symington, William, Messiah the Prince: or, The Mediatorial Dominion of Jesus Christ 150–51 (Christian Statesman Press 1999) (William Whyte & Co. 1839)Google Scholar.

20. Cf, Salomon, Gottfried, Social Organism, in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences vol. 14, 138 (Seligman, Edwin R.A. & Johnson, Alvin eds., Macmillan Co. 1934)Google Scholar.

21. Reformed Presbyterian Church, Reformation Principles Exhibited, Being the Declaration and Testimony of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America 7 (R. Craighead 1850) (1806) (emphasis added)Google Scholar.

22. See the Westminster Confession I, in The Confession of Faith 9-10 (Associate-Reformed Church 1799).

23. Symington, supra note 19, at 154-55.

24. Rev 1:5, Dan 7:14.

25. Symington, supra note 19, at xi-xii, 126-39.

26. McLeod, Alexander, Messiah, Governor of the Nations of the Earth: A Discourse 7–19 (T. & J. Swords 1803) forcefully states the covenanter positionGoogle Scholar.

27. William Symington (1795-1862), pastor, theology professor, and writer, was the leading Scottish Reformed Presbyterian of his generation; for his life, see Dictionary of National Biography vol. 19, 270 (Stephen, Leslie & Lee, Sidney eds., Smith, Elder, & Co. 1885)Google Scholar.

28. For Christ as head of the church, see Symington, supra note 19, at 73-125.

29. Id. at 126.

30. Id. at 138-39.

31. Id. at 150-53.

32. Id. at 153-54.

33. Id. at 153-54. Although not germane to the present discussion, it should be noted that the Covenanters were not “theonomists”; that is, they did not believe that the detailed, judicial rules of mosaic Israel were binding on modern nations. Rather, they, like all other reformed protestants of the time, believed that the “moral law” as implied by the Decalogue was the rule of action for Christians; see id. at 156-57.

34. Id. at 158.

35. Id. at 158-60.

36. Id. at 162-63. Symington recognized the right of the ruled to choose their rulers, within the limitations of Biblical standards: id. at 158.

37. Id. at 163.

38. Id. at 167.

39. For example, an establishment figure such as the Scottish-born President John Witherspoon of Princeton, signer of the Declaration of Independence and framer of the government of the main American Presbyterian denomination, expressed the conventional American view of church-state relations; see Morrison, Jeffrey H., John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic 41–42, 120–21 (Univ. Notre Dame Press 2005)Google Scholar.

40. Carson, supra note 10, at 15-16, has an excellent discussion of this point.

41. For Findley's life, see Findley, William, Observation on “The two Sons of Oil” viii–x (Caldwell, John ed., Liberty Fund 2007) (1811)Google Scholar.

42. Id. at 151-53.

43. E.g., id. at 84, 143-44, 197-98.

44. Id. at 164-65, 224-27.

45. Federalist No. 46 (James Madison).

46. Wylie, supra note 18, at 10.

47. Reformation Principles Exhibited, supra note 21, at 107.

48. Wylie, supra note 18, at 9.

49. Id. at 34; see also McLeod, Alexander, A Scriptural View of the Character, Causes, and Ends of the Present War 54–55 (1815)Google Scholar.

50. Wylie, supra note 18, at 57.

51. As noted in supra note 31, the Reformed Presbyterians were not “theonomists”; cf. West. Conf. XIX:ii-iii, in Confession of Faith, supra note 20, at 83-84.

52. Wylie, supra note 18, at 41, 45.

53. Id. at 43; Willson, James R., Prince Messiah's Claims to Dominion Over All Governments: and the Disregard of His Authority by the United States, in Federal Constitution 21–22 (1832)Google Scholar.

54. Wylie, supra note 18, at 49. For the Covenanters, human rights were derived and subject to limitation, not inherent: “[a]ll the rights of man are derived from God, and agreeable to His law”: McLeod, Alexander, Negro Slavery Unjustifiable: A Discourse 10 (McLeod 1860) (1802)Google Scholar.

55. Deut 20:3-8.

56. Reformation Principles Exhibited, supra note 21, at 79-83.

57. Wylie, supra note 18, at 49.

58. Id. at 38.

59. “[I]t is certainly true, since Messiah is the Prince of the kings of the earth, that the national constitution is sinful in refusing this allegiance”: Willson, supra note 53, at 23.

60. The Selected Writings of John Witherspoon 138 (Miller, Thomas ed., S. Ill. Univ. Press 1990)Google Scholar; this view was often expressed in the early national period: see, e.g., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 vol. 2, 1227, 334, 1343–46, 1436–37 (Sandoz, Ellis ed., Liberty Fund 1998)Google Scholar.

61. Church of the Holy Trinity v. U.S., 143 U.S. 457, 471 (1892); see also Brewer, David J., United States, a Christian Nation (Am. Vision 1996) (J.C. Winston 1905)Google Scholar.

62. For use of the phrase “under God,” see Ellis, Richard J., To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance 124–39 (Univ. Press Kan. 2005)Google Scholar.

63. Wylie, supra note 18, at 58. Wylie cited in particular the 1797 treaty with Tripoli (8 Stat. 154), with its famous denial that the United States government is “in any sense founded on the Christian religion”: id. at 44.

64. Id. at 42-44. This is a position Reformed Presbyterians still strongly hold: see, e.g., Vos, supra note 3, at 5-7.

65. New York Ratifying Convention Remarks (1788), in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. Vol. V, at 24 (Syrett, Harold Coffin & Cooke, Jacob Ernest eds., Colum. Univ. Press 1962)Google Scholar. If anything, Hamilton understated the matter: see Wills, Garry, Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power 5–23, 53–61 (Houghton Mifflin 2003)Google Scholar. For covenanter criticism of the three-fifths clause, see McLeod, supra note 24, at 56-57.

66. Wylie, supra note 18, at 61-62. William Findley, expressing the conventional, mainstream presbyterian position, stated his personal disapproval of slavery while recognizing it as an established, legal institution. See Findley, supra note 41, at 152-63.

67. Carson, supra note 10, at 53. In 1800, the Reformed Presbytery ruled that no slaveholder could be a church member; in response, South Carolina Covenanters in one day freed slaves “to the value of 3,000 guineas.” Later Covenanters were active in the abolition movement and in the underground railroad: see id. at 53-55; and Durey, Michael, Transatlantic Radicals and the Early American Republic 288 (Univ. Press Kan. 1997)Google Scholar.

68. They agreed with William Lloyd Garrison: the constitution “is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell” (cf. Isa 28:15).

69. McLeod, supra note 26, at 20-21. The covenanter condemnation of slavery makes an interesting comparison with its defense by the old-school southern Presbyterians: cf. Lucas, Sean M., Robert Lewis Dabney: A Southern Presbyterian Life 120–28 (P&R Publ'n 2005)Google Scholar.

70. Reformation Principles Exhibited, supra note 21, at 121-23.

71. A Scots legal term: “confession or acknowledgment of the right homologated”: James, , Viscount Stair, The Institutions of the law of Scotland 1010 (Univ. Press Edinburgh & Yale 1981) (1693)Google Scholar.

72. Reformation Principles Exhibited, supra note 21, at 113. For covenanter exposition of Rom 13:1 (“Let every soul be subject to the higher powers”) and related scriptural passages sometimes cited to justify Christian submission even to an ungodly state, see Willson, James M., Civil Government: An Exposition of Romans XIII 1–7, at 16–24 (W.S. Young 1853)Google Scholar.

73. McLeod, supra note 26, at 40-43.

74. Wylie, supra note 18, at 63; Wylie himself fled Ireland because he could not swear allegiance to an uncovenanted king. See McBride, supra note 15, at 78.

75. See State v. Willson, 13 S.C.L. (2 McCord) 393 (1823).

76. Wylie, supra note 18, at 47-50. The Covenanters did support the right of the United States to wage defensive war in 1812: McLeod, supra note 24, at 193-96; and later decided to allow jury and military service under some circumstances: Carson, supra note 10, at 27.

77. Wylie, supra note 18, at 69. The Church's official Reformation Principles Exhibited, supra note 21, at 114, stated the principle in a less confrontational way.

78. In 1969, the Reformed Presbyterian Church decided, on Biblical grounds, that oath taking, voting, and office holding were, in some circumstances, permissible. For the Church's present position, see The Westminster Confession of Faith: The Modern Language Revision of The Westminster Confession of Faith; & The Testimony of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America 124–51 (Crown & Covenant Publications 2000)Google Scholar. The Covenanters, however, still strongly testify to the “crown rights” of Jesus Christ, in both church and state. See Frank Dean Frazer, Outline Studies in the Covenant (“Reprinted by order of Synod of 1970”), unpaginated.

79. What follows is a summary of the assertions set forth in the works of Wylie, supra note 18; McLeod, supra note 24; and Willson, supra note 53. For a rather jaundiced running criticism of these assertions, one could not find better than Findley, supra note 41.

80. Symington, supra note 19, at 73, 126.

81. Wylie, supra note 18, at 29-32; McLeod, supra note 26, at 33-34.

82. See McLeod, supra note 26, at 15-28, on the right of ministers to comment on public issues and to reprove erring public officers.

83. Wylie, supra note 18, at 18-29; Reformation Principles Exhibited, supra note 21, at 110.

84. Wylie, supra note 18, at 37-38.

85. Wylie, supra note 18, at 92.

86. For this period, see Vos, supra note 3, at 45-64.

87. See generally Explicitly Christian Politics: The Vision of the National Reform Association (Einwechter, William O. ed., Christian Statesman Press 1997)Google Scholar.

88. For a good example, see Moore, Roy & Perry, John, So Help me God: The ten Commandments, Judicial Tyranny, and the Battle for Religious Freedom 246–61 (Broadman & Holman 2005)Google Scholar.

89. Kramnick, Isaac & Moore, R. Laurence, The Godless Constitution; The Case Against Religious Correctness 44, 173 (Republic Publ'n Co. 1996)Google Scholar.

90. See, e.g., Willson, supra note 53, at 25-26. It is interesting that Willson (at 26) refers to “Manuscript Minutes of the Convention” in arguing that any reference to God was intentionally excluded from the federal constitution. Madison's Debates were published only in 1840.

91. For examples of this assertion, see Kramnick & Moore, supra note 89, at 22-23, 148-49.

92. Wylie, supra note 18, at 48.

93. A popular assertion of the Christian right; see, e.g., Moore & Perry, supra note 88, at 45-49.

94. E.g., Holmes, David L., The Faiths of the Founding Fathers 163 (Oxford Univ. Press 2006)Google Scholar; West, John G. Jr., The Politics of Revelation and Reason: Religion and Civic Life in the New Nation 73–78 (Am. Historical Ass'n 1996)Google Scholar.

95. For examples of this Christian-right mythology, see Kramnick & Moore, supra note 89, at 22-23, 166; cf., http://www.worldnetdaily.com, James R. Willson's blunt conclusion that Jefferson “was an avowed infidel, and notoriously addicted to immorality”: Willson, supra note 53, at 33.

96. The classic dissection of this world is, of course, Becker, Carl, Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (Yale Univ. Press 1932)Google Scholar.

97. Clarfield, Gerard H., Timothy Pickering and the American Republic 264 (Univ. Pittsburgh Press 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98. Hill, C. William Jr., The Political Theory of John Taylor of Caroline 30, 53 (Farleigh Dickinson Univ. Press 1977)Google Scholar.

99. Willson, supra note 53, at 26.

100. Id. at 25-26, 31-33.

101. Wylie, supra note 18, at 38.

102. E.g., Finkelman, Paul, Slavery and the Founders; Race and Liberty in the age of Jefferson 1–57 (2d ed., M.E. Sharpe, Inc. 2001) (slavery in the constitutional convention)Google Scholar; Wills, supra note 65, at 1-13 (three-fifths clause); Lightner, David L., Slavery and the Commerce Power; How the Struggle Against the Interstate Slave Trade Led to the Civil War 16–19 (Yale Univ. Press 2006) (slave trade)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alfred, W. & Blumrosen, Ruth G., Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies & Sparked the American Revolution 235–36 (Sourcebooks, Inc. 2005) (fugitive slave clause)Google Scholar.

103. As asserted by Fehrenbacher, Don E., The Slaveh0Ld1Ng Republic: an Account of the United States Government's Relations to Slavery 47 (Oxford Univ. Press 2001)Google Scholar.

104. “O America, what has thou to account for on the head of slavery! Thou alone, of all the nations now on earth, didst commission thy delegates, in peace, and in security from the overawing menaces of a tyrant, or of factions, to form thy Constitution”: McLeod, supra note 24, at 21.

105. Willson, supra note 53, at 28.

106. Reformation Principles Exhibited, supra note 21, at 112; see also Wylie, supra note 18, at 44-45.