To recap these events:

Working from May 25, when a quorum was established, until September 17, 1787, when the convention voted to endorse the final form of the Constitution, the delegates gathered in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania State House were actually obligated only to revise or amend the Articles of Confederation. Under those Articles, however, the government was plagued by weaknesses, such as its inability to raise revenues to pay its foreign debts or maintain an army. From the outset, most the convention’s organizers, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton chief among them, knew that splints and bandages wouldn’t do the trick for the broken Articles.

The government was broke –literally and figuratively– and they were going to fix it by inventing an entirely new one. James Madison had been studying more than 200 books on constitutions and republican history sent to him by Thomas Jefferson in preparation for the convention. The moving force behind the convention, Madison came prepared with the outline of a new Constitution.

A reluctant George Washington, whose name was placed at the head of list of Virginia’s delegates without his knowledge, was unquestionably spurred by the events in Massachusetts (Shay’s Rebellion, a violent protest by Massachusetts farmers). Elected president of the convention, he wrote from Philadelphia in June to his close wartime confidant and ally, the Marquis de Lafayette:

I could not resist the call to a convention of the States which is to determine whether we are to have a government of respectability under which life, liberty, and property will be secured to us, or are to submit to one which may be the result of chance or the moment, springing perhaps from anarchy and Confusion, and dictated perhaps by some aspiring demagogue.

On September 17, Washington signed the parchment copy first, as President of the convention. He was followed by the remaining delegates from the twelve states that sent delegates in geographical order, from north to south, beginning with New Hampshire. (Rhode Island was the only state that did not send a delegation.) When the last of the signatures was added –that of Abraham Baldwin of Georgia– Benjamin Franklin gazed at Washington’s chair, on which was painted a bright yellow sun. He then spoke, as James Madison recorded it:

I have, said he, often in the course of a session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell if it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.

In another perhaps more apocryphal tale, Franklin left the building and was confronted by a lady who asked, “Well Doctor, do we have a monarchy or a republic?” The witty sage of Philadelphia replied,

“A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

This post is excerpted from America’s Hidden History, which offers fuller account of the Convention and the events that led to it.  You can also read more about the Constitutional Convention and the Constitution in Don’t Know Much About History: Anniversary Edition.

For more about the Constitution, visit these sites:
The National Constitutional Center in Philadelphia:

James Madison’s Montpelier:

Charters of Freedom at the National Archives

While small in stature, and sometimes overshadowed by his more famous Virginian predecessors, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Madison must be considered one of the greatest of the Founding Fathers for the breadth and influence of his contributions.

Montpelier, home of James Madison (Photo: Kenneth C. Davis, 2010)

James Madison was born on March 16, 1751 in Port Conway, Virginia. The son of a tobacco planter, he was somewhat sickly as a child and was mostly tutored at home. But he proved to be a true scholar and at age 16, chose the unusual course –at that time– of going north to study at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), rather than the College of William and Mary in nearby Williamsburg. There he came under the influence of the college President, John Witherspoon, a future signer of the Declaration of Independence, and made a friend of fellow student, young Aaron Burr, son of the College’s founder.

Returning to Virginia, Madison became involved in patriot politics and became a close colleague of his neighbor Thomas Jefferson, serving as Jefferson’s adviser and confidant during the war years while Jefferson was Governor of Virginia.

In 1794, he married the widow Dolley Payne Todd, having been formally introduced by his college friend Aaron Burr.

A few Madison Highlights–

•Secured passage of the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786), an act that is a cornerstone of religious freedom in America. As part of that effort, he wrote the influential Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments. (I discuss the “Remonstrance” in my article “America’s True History of Religious Tolerance” in the October 2010 Smithsonian.)

•Was the moving force behind the Constitutional Convention and was one of the principal authors of the Constitution

•With Alexander Hamilton and John Jay was one of the authors of The Federalist Papers, arguments in favor of the ratification of the Constitution

•Was principal author of the Bill of Rights, which he originally thought unnecessary

Following ratification of the Constitution, Madison was a member of the House of Representatives from Virginia and a powerful Congressional ally of George Washington.

•Drafted the first version of Washington’s Farewell Address

•Supervised the Louisiana Purchase as Thomas Jefferson’s Secretary of State

•Presided over the ill-prepared nation during the War of 1812, the “second war of independence”

 

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. –June 16, 1788

Madison died on June 28, 1836 at Montpelier, at age 85. He is buried at Montpelier.

LINKS:

The White House brief biography of James Madison

The Library of Congress Resource Collection on James Madison.

Madison’s Major Papers and Inaugural Addresses can be found at the Avalon Project of the Yale Law School.

We want it (the library) to be a place for relaxation and fun for the kids.

Bringing to light one more depressing example in a long, sad line of stories about censorship may simply make your eyes glaze over. But this Connecticut library story comes right on the heels of the Smithsonian’s decision to pull a video, “A Fire in My Belly,” from a recent show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. because it included 11 seconds of footage of ants crawling on a crucifix.

Add these two incidents to the renewed threats to withdraw federal funding from public broadcasting by an emboldened Republican majority in the House, the attempted cancellation of an August Wilson play for its use of the word “nigger,” and the related controversy over an expurgated version –subject of a previous blog– of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Censorship is riding high. It is once again as American as apple pie, assassinations and anti-immigrant vitriol.

Perhaps this trend should come as no surprise. The last election seemed to suggest a swing to the right. Economic hard times also tend to produce a backlash against what is “unpopular” or “different.” Public funding of “controversial art” has always been a bete noire for many Republicans, evangelical Christians and some Catholics. But in a time when the political discourse includes a church group that protests at soldiers’ funerals and placing cross-hairs on political ads, the calls for censorship aren’t limited to the right side of the political spectrum.

All of these developments demand a restatement and explanation of the First Amendment. So here it is, courtesy of the American Library Association:

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES.

Of course, there is a long litany of weighty quotes from writers and jurists about the importance of free expression in an open, democratic society. One would hope that it need not be provided to Congress or the Town Council of Enfield, Ct.

But it is this simple — a group of radicals, who wanted to overthrow the society and government that ruled them, once wrote and said some very dangerous things. Today, we keep them in the National Archives. The Founders and Framers understood with complete clarity that it is the least popular ideas and expression that need the most protection.

In 1941, on the 150th anniversary of the ratification, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that December 15th would be Bill of Rights Day.

Now it may not be circled red on your calendar, but few events in American history are more important –or the source of more controversy — than the ratification of the Bill of Rights. These Ten Amendments (not Commandments!) are at the heart of the most precious rights guaranteed by the Constitution, including the First Amendment’s guarantees of speech, religion, the press, peaceable assembly and the right to petition. They are also at the heart of some of our most pressing controversies, including the right to bear arms, the rights of the accused under the American system of justice, and the power of the states versus the federal government.

Here is the Preamble to the Bill of Rights:

Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

The full text and history of the Bill of Rights can be found the site of the National Archives.

In Philadelphia, they celebrate Bill of Rights Day at the Constitution Center and you can find some good resources there.

I hope you’ll take some time to read these precious Amendments today. It doesn’t take long and it is well worth the effort.

Happy Bill of Rights Day!

The epithet “Socialist” seems to be one of the worst things a politician can be called these days. In the early 20th century, Eugene V. Debs staked a proud claim to it. And in 1920, running for President from a federal penitentiary, he won nearly one million votes as an American Socialist.

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana on November 5, 1855, Eugene V. Debs is a name left out of many schoolbooks. That’s too bad. If you are looking for a profile in American courage, you might want to know his name. He was a fearless defender of the rights of workers and the poor and a champion of free speech.

A high school dropout, Debs went to business school at night while he worked days. He became a labor organizer and eventually helped found some of the first labor organizations in America, including the International Workers of the World (or “Wobblies”).

In 1894, Debs initially opposed a strike against the Pullman Car Company, then one of America’s largest and most powerful companies. He later helped lead the strike. After President Grover Cleveland sent in troops to break the Pullman strike, killing thirteen workers, Debs was arrested for his failure to obey an injunction against the strike and was sent to federal prison. His case eventually went to the Supreme Court and Debs was represented by noted attorney Clarence Darrow, who had left his position as a railroad lawyer to defend Debs. The court upheld the right of the federal government to issue the injunction. While in jail, Debs read the works of Karl Marx and became a Socialist. He ran for President as the Socialist candidate five times –winning about 6% of the vote in 1912.

His final candidacy came in 1920, while he was once more in jail. During World War I, Debs became a passionate and vocal opponent of the war and urged resistance to the draft, earning the wrath of  President Woodrow Wilson. He was convicted of sedition and sentenced to ten years in prison. The Supreme Court again ruled on his case, once more confirming his sentence. While in jail, Debs received more than 900,000 write-in votes for President (about 3 % of the popular vote).

Among his supporters was Helen Keller. She wrote a letter to Eugene V. Debs, whom she addressed as “Dear Comrade”  (March 11, 1919) while he was in prison. She wrote:

I write because I want you to now that I should be proud if the Supreme Court convicted me of abhorring war, and doing all in my power to oppose it. When I think of the millions who have suffered in all the wicked wars of the past, I am shaken with the anguish of a great impatience. I want to fling myself against all brute powers that destroy the life, and break the spirit of man.
. . .  We were driven onto war for liberty, democracy and humanity. Behold what is happening all over the world today! Oh where is the swift vengeance of Jehovah that it does not fall upon the hosts of those who are marshalling machine-guns against hungry-stricken peoples? It is the complacency of madness to call such acts “preserving law and order.” What oceans of blood and tears are shed in their name! I have come to loathe traditions and institutions that take away the rights of the poor and protect the wicked against judgment.

Following the election of 1920, President Harding commuted Debs’ sentence to time served on Christmas 1921. After making a visit to Harding at the White House, Debs returned to cheering crowds in Indiana. In poor health attributed to his imprisonment, Debs died five years later on October 20, 1926 at age 70.

A somewhat reluctant leader, he once said:

Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves.    (From an address on Industrial Unionism delivered in New York City, Dec. 18,1905)

A good overview of Debs’ life and times can be found at the Eugene V. Debs Foundation

You can read more about Eugene V. Debs and the early labor movement in

But first, the pop quiz portion of the class continues. These five questions are  drawn from the Naturalization Test given to applicants for U.S. Citizenship. Surely any native American citizen can get all of them right. Surely.

1. How many Amendments does the Constitution have?

2. What are two rights in the Declaration of Independence?

3.  Name three of the original thirteen states.

4. What territory did the United States buy in 1803? (And who sold it?)

5. Who was President during World War I?

In the previous post, I highlighted the Fourth Amendment. That is the first of four of the articles in the Bill of Rights that deal with the rights of the accused. The Framers were men who had lived under a monarch with nearly unlimited powers. It is no accident that four of the ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights were clearly designed to protect the innocent and curb the power of the government in accusing and trying the people.

Amendment Five

Guarantees provisions for prosecution and due process of law. Double jeopardy restriction. Protects against self-incrimination. Safeguards due process. Private property not to be taken without compensation.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

“Pleading the Fifth” has acquired the connotation of “He must be hiding something” for many people. If you have nothing to hide, they reason, you would tell the truth. But the idea behind protection from self-incrimination is part of a tradition of reasoning that begins with the presumption of innocence and was designed to check the power of the government. Written by men who knew the unlimited power of a monarch or church to compel evidence, the Bill of Rights placed the interest of the individual above that of the state. Under this amendment, the Constitution requires the state to establish guilt by independent evidence, protecting everyone from a potentially abusive government.

Amendment Six

Guarantees the right to a speedy trial, witnesses, counsel.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining Witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

This amendment also protects the individual’s rights in criminal proceedings. Having seen people taken to jail under a monarchy, never to be seen again, the authors of the Bill of Rights wrote specific protections against that possibility. Speedy trials, public trials instead of secret inquisitions, jury trials in the district where the crime is committed, the right to confront accusers, and the guarantee of legal representation are all bedrock rights in the American system of justice.

Answers

1. 27

2. Life. Liberty. The Pursuit of happiness.

3. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.

4. Louisiana Territory (from France)

5. Woodrow Wilson

It’s called the Naturalization Test, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and applicants for citizenship must pass it.

Could most American-born citizens pass it? In my experience testing audiences with some of these questions, many people are on shaky  ground. That’s one reason I am offering this Civics Primer as Election Day approaches.

So here are a couple of  questions from the test, Can you keep your passport?  (Answers below. Don’t peek!) –

1. The Vice-President takes over if the President can’t serve. What official is next in line? (And what is that person’s name currently?)

2. What do we call the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution?

3. What are the three branches of government?

4. Name one of the three writers of the Federalist Papers (essays which supported ratifying the Constitution)?

5. Name one of the two longest rivers in America. (Gotcha. You didn’t think there was any Geography on this test, did you?)

My previous posts focused on the first two of the initial Ten Amendments to the Constitution. Here’s a quick refresher on Numbers Three and Four.

Amendment Three is the Rodney Dangerfield of Amendments– it gets no respect.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner prescribed by law.

A reaction to the enforced housing of British troops in colonial America before independence was achieved, this amendment has never been the basis for a Supreme Court decision since its adoption. It does mean, however, that the Army can’t just move into your house if it decides it needs a barracks for some troops.  It also serves as an important reminder of what the major concerns were for the men who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights: they were concerned about protection of individual rights and property and feared, perhaps more than anything, the unlimited power of government.

Amendment Four has gotten much more attention.

Protects from unreasonable search and seizure. Calls for probable cause.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

At the heart of the debate over “criminals’ rights,” this amendment was intended to protect privacy and personal security as essential to liberty. This means that no one can be arrested without a warrant naming a specific individual with a specified crime. Arrests without warrants may be made in the case of a felony when the police arrest someone suspected of a crime. After such an arrest, a judge must determine if there is probable cause to hold that person. A police officer can also arrest someone who commits a minor infraction, or misdemeanor, in the presence of the arresting officer.

The amendment also permits only “reasonable” searches and covers evidence that is uncovered during a search that relates to a separate crime. All of these issues depend on the court hearing them. No warrant is necessary for police to look for something outside a building or private yard or property.

Answers:

1. The Speaker of the House of Representatives (currently Nancy Pelosi)

2. The Bill of Rights

3. Legislative (Article I of the Constitution); the Executive (Article II of the Constitution); Judicial (Article III of the Constitution)

4. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay

5. The Missouri or the Mississippi

A new online survey suggests many Americans can’t answer those Civics 101 questions. That is a point underscored in a New York Times Week in Review article yesterday that points out how many Americans don’t know what the First Amendment says. Two of them, sad to say, are Senate candidates in Delaware where Republican Christine O’Donell and her Democratic rival Chris Coons had trouble sorting out the fundamental rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

To me, this is not only sad but dangerous, especially with Election Day a week away. But this sorry state also constitutes a “teachable moment.”

So, in my ongoing effort to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness, here begins a Civics Primer on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and a few other basic things we all “need to know” about American History. This Civics Class will offer some of the fundamental facts about American History and government, including the fact that Electoral College is NOT a Party School.

I am going to start with the First Amendment as it is so prominently in the headlines. I will continue this series in the days and weeks ahead until ahead until we all get it right –or you can turn in your passport.

First, a little background about the Supreme Law of the Land — the Constitution and the changes that have been made to it.

The U.S. Constitution was drafted during the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence had been written and adopted eleven years earlier. Under the new Constitution,  the first Congress, meeting in New York City on September 25, 1789, submitted twelve proposed changes to the Constitution—called articles or amendments—for ratification by the states. These amendments dealt with certain individual and states’ rights not specifically named in the Constitution. Ten of these articles, which were originally proposed as Amendments Three through Twelve, were declared ratified in 1791 and are now known as Amendments One through Ten, or the Bill of Rights.

Since 1791, another seventeen changes have been made to the Constitution, a process that begins when Congress proposes an amendment, which must clear both the House and the Senate by a two-thirds majority. The proposed amendment is sent to the states for ratification. Three quarters of the states are needed to ratify, and that is usually done by state legislatures.

Here is the First Amendment. And it should be clear to everyone why this one comes first–

Amendment One

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The First Amendment guarantees five fundamental American freedoms:

-Religion: Prohibits the establishment of religions by government and guarantees freedom of religion. One of the only restraints on religion permitted is on a practice that may endanger the physical health of citizens; for instance, courts have allowed medical treatment of children against their parents’ religious beliefs.

(For more background on the road that led Madison to the First Amendment, see my  Smithsonian article on the history of religious intolerance in America.)

-Speech: Guarantees that government cannot limit speech with certain exceptions established over the years by the Courts, such as slanderous or obscene speech. Of course, private companies and employers can limit the speech of their employees, which is why National Public Radio can fire Juan Williams for breaching their code of conduct for reporters and commentators.

-Press: Guarantees freedom of the press from government interference, including college publications (but not public high school students). This freedom applies to books, magazines, and most television and radio programs (although the Federal Communications Commission is able to limit broadcasts under its licensing powers– hence a “wardrobe malfunction” is not protected “speech.)

-Assembly: Guarantees the right to assemble peaceably, which includes picketing, a right that that has been at the core of political, labor and civil rights disputes. In general, picketing is protected  when it is for a lawful purpose and is orderly.

-Petition: Guarantees the right to petition government, a protection best exemplified by the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence.

There you go. Five Easy pieces– Fundamental Freedoms you can count on one hand.

Next: The Second Amendment

And by the way:  the Answers are Joe Biden, one hundred Senators (two from each state) and nine Justices.

For a country that is seemingly wild about religion, we may not be a Godless Nation, but we sure are a Clueless Nation.

The latest survey of American knowledge (or ignorance!) — a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life– tested Americans on the basics of religion –Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths. According to the Pew survey as reported by the New York Times, most people scored around 50 percent –which is a failing grade. The most knowledgeable were atheists and agnostics.

Here is the New York Times story about the survey with a link to a sample of the quiz. (Full Disclosure: I scored 6 out of 6 on the sample.)  Religion Test

Link here to the Pew Forum

The results of this survey do not surprise me at all. For all of the talk of America being a “Christian Nation,” and being founded on “religious principles,” many Americans are as misinformed about religion as they are about history, basic science and geography. Many people tend to believe what they were told when they were children. That, is sadly, a very incomplete eduction.  Few of us seem to move past “thinking like a child,” and do as Saint Paul said,

“When I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13: 11)

When I wrote Don’t Know Much About the Bible, I said the “Good Book” fits Mark Twain’s definition of a “classic”

A book which people praise but never read.”

Most people continue to rely upon what they hear from preachers and politicians. Often is is misquoted or taken out of context, Or they remember what they distilled from the Hollywood version of the Bible. The internet has, in many ways, just made matters worse.

The very serious problem that the Pew survey underscores is that there a lot of people out there making stark judgments about matters like religion about which they are Clueless. And when it comes to Americans doing very bad things based on their beliefs, the results can be deadly. I traced the murderous intersection of religion and history and America’s so-called tradition of tolerance, in this recent Smithsonian article:

America’s True History of Religious Tolerance

By the way, Job is the biblical character for whom a very challenging chapter of the Bible is named. God took away everything he had — over a bet with Satan.

We’ve been hearing a lot about America’s tradition of religious freedom and tolerance lately. But for centuries, religion has been used as a weapon to discriminate and cudgel “non- believers” and “heathens,” many of whom came to America in search of religious freedom they never found. The battle over faith in the public square started long before the “Ground Zero Mosque.”

In the October, 2010 issue of Smithsonian magazine, I delve into the real history of America’s attitudes about religion and it is a far different picture from the tidy tableau and storybook version of tolerance that we tell our children. The Smithsonian magazine article, “God and Country,” traces the long and often murderous history of religious battles fought on American soil, going back to 1565, before the Pilgrims even arrived, when Spanish Catholics massacred French Protestants in Florida–a story not told in most of our textbooks.

Here is a link to the Smithsonian article.

“They’re quite clear — that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments.”

But a review of the path blazed by Christians in both the colonial era and the nation’s early life is not so tidy. Christianity, as we know, arrived in the New World with Christopher Columbus, who crucified natives who failed to produce enough gold in rows of thirteen –one for Jesus and each of the disciples. The Spanish conquistadors also introduced the “Requerimiento” which demanded conversion to Christianity and threatened slavery and death to those who did not. (The Indian converts were enslaved and killed anyway.)

Here are a few more of the highlights of the path blazed by Christians that take a bit of the luster off the myth of America as a “Christian nation.” Most of them probably weren’t in your textbook.

-Fort Caroline Massacre (1565): The first real contact between Europeans in what would become America took place in Florida, near modern Jacksonville, where hundreds of French Huguenots, the real first “Pilgrims,” were massacred by the Spanish who founded St. Augustine for this purpose. The Spanish Admiral who led this search and destroy mission hung some of the survivors with a sign above them reading, “I do this not as to Frenchmen but as to Lutherans,” by which he meant “Protestants” or actually “heretics.” (This story is told in America’s Hidden History.)

-Mayflower Compact (November 1620): Usually cited as the kickoff point for the “Christian Nation,” the Mayflower Compact did indeed recognize the religious underpinnings of the new colony. It also recognized the sovereignty of the King.
And by the way: Sorry, “Goodie” Palin. You don’t get a vote.

-The Mystic Massacre: During the Pequot War of 1637, hundreds of women, children and mostly old men were killed or burned to death in a Puritan attack on a Pequot Indian village. Governor William Bradford would later write that “horrible was the stincke and [scent] thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them….”

-The Boston Martyrs: On October 27, 1659, two Quakers, Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson, were executed in Boston, the Puritans’ “shining city upon a hill,” under a 1658 law banning the Society of Friends as a “cursed sect.” In June 1660, Mary Dyer was executed and a fourth “Friend” was hung in 1661.
Religious dissenters Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson had also been banished from the Bay Colony for their opposition to the Puritan “theocracy.”
And Catholic priests were banned in Boston, where for many years November 5 (Guy Fawke’s Day in England) was celebrated as “Pope Day” on which rowdy, brawling and usually drunken mobs wheeled an effigy of the Pope around Boston and ended the day by setting the carts and effigies on fire.

-Baptists arrested in Virginia: Between 1768 and 1778, Baptists were persecuted and arrested in Virginia, where the Anglican Church was the official church supported by public funds. (In New England, the Congregational Church enjoyed that support.)
The sight of Baptist preachers being arrested troubled a young James Madison who would later spearhead passage in 1786 of the landmark Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1779. (The law is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed to be put in his epitaph.)

-Ben Franklin’s Prayer Request: At a deadlocked Constitutional Convention in 1787, Ben Franklin –as many religious conservatives and advocates of public prayer like to note—suggested beginning the day’s deliberations with a prayer. Alexander Hamilton worried that if people heard that they would think the delegates were desperate. Another delegate pointed out that there were no funds to pay a chaplain. There the discussion ended as Franklin notes, most thought prayers “unnecessary.”
(By the way, Jesus, though no Constitutional scholar, took a dim view of public prayer. Saying that only “hypocrites” pray in public, Jesus advised, “pray to the Father in secret.” [Matthew 6: 5-7])
Contrary to Sarah Palin’s statement –“Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant” – the U.S. Constitution does not mention God, the Bible or the Ten Commandments.

-Burning of the Ursuline Convent (1833): A combination of anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment led a mob of self-described “Sons of the Tea Party” to torch a convent school in Charlestown, Massachusetts, not far from the recently dedicated Bunker Hill Monument.

- Philadelphia’s Bible Riots: Over the course of a few weeks in May and July of 1844, dozens of people were killed, hundreds of houses burned and churches destroyed in the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic “Bible Riots.” I recount this event and the Ursuline Convent burning in my new book A NATION RISING.

-“Church and Slave State”: Abolitionism had its roots in Christianity. But so did American slavery, which cited biblical justifications for the “peculiar institution.” In the 19th century, this divide led to splits within three Protestant denominations that divided North and South: the Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians. (In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention apologized for its racist past and support of slavery, 140 years after the split.)

Of course, this is a mere handful of the landmarks in this so-called “Christian Nation.” We haven’t even gotten to the Mormons and the violence that confronted them in the early 19th century.
And of course, it would be quite easy to list a great many nobler moments in American Christianity. But the point is that calling America a “Christian Nation” is simply another myth – history as “bedtime story” or wishful thinking. History and Christianity deserve the truth –which after all, the Bible tells us, “will set you free.”

With little formal education, he became a writer, printer, philanthropist, philosopher, political leader and scientist. Franklin, alongside Thomas Jefferson, was probably the best example of the American Enlightenment Man. And, like Jefferson and other men of his times, Benjamin Franklin was skeptical of organized religion.

But proponents of America as a “Christian nation” and those who favor public prayer often cite Benjamin Franklin’s entreaty that the Constitutional Convention –then seemingly at an unbreakable impasse– open its daily debates with a prayer. What they conveniently leave out is what actually happened following that suggestion.

Alexander Hamilton first argued that if the people knew that the Convention was resorting to prayer at such a late date, it might be viewed as an act of desperation. Nonetheless, Franklin’s motion was seconded. But then Hugh Williamson of North Carolina pointed out that the convention lacked funds to pay a chaplain, and there the proposition died. Franklin later noted,

The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary.

Late in his life, Franklin wrote what could almost pass for a modern New Age statement of faith:

“Here is my creed. I believe in one God, creator of the universe.
That he governs it by his Providence. . . . That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. . . . As to Jesus of Nazareth. I think the system of morals and his religion . . . the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have . . . some doubts as to his divinity.”

He added, “I have ever let others enjoy their religious sentiments. . . . I hope to go out of the world in peace with all of them.”

Franklin died on April 17, 1790.
Here’s a link to a Library of Congress website celebrating Franklin on his 300th birthday in 2006.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/franklin/introduction.html

You can read more about Franklin and his accomplishments and impact in Don’t Know Much About History and America’s Hidden History

It’s a red meat issue that is good for ratings and direct mail fund raising. But the fact is, an increasingly secular America celebrates more than just Christmas at this time of year — so “Happy Holidays” is not only appropriate, it makes good business sense. And most religious displays are not banned. Courts simply direct that one religion cannot be favored over another under the Constitutional protections of the First Amendment. Christmas displays are generally permitted as long as menorahs, Kwanzaa displays and other seasonal symbols are also allowed.

In other words, the “War on Christmas” is pretty much a phony war.

But where did this all start? The “war on Christmas” screamers might be interested to know that the first laws against Christmas celebrations and festivities in America came during the 1600s –from the same wonderful folks who brought you the Salem Witch Trials — the Puritans. (By the way, H.L. Mencken once defined Puritanism as the fear that “somewhere someone may be happy.”)

“For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county.”

–From the records of the General Court,
Massachusetts Bay Colony
May 11, 1659

The Founding Fathers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were not a festive bunch. To them, Christmas was a debauched, wasteful festival that threatened their core religious beliefs. They understood that most of the trappings of Christmas –like holly and mistletoe– were vestiges of ancient pagan rituals. More importantly, they thought Christmas — the mass of Christ– was too “popish,” by which they meant Roman Catholic. These are the people who banned Catholic priests from Boston under penalty of death.

This sensibility actually began over the way in which Christmas was celebrated in England. Oliver Cromwell, a strict Puritan who took over England in 1645, believed it was his mission to cleanse the country of the sort of seasonal moral decay that Protestant writer Philip Stubbes described in the 1500s:

‘More mischief is that time committed than in all the year besides … What dicing and carding, what eating and drinking, what banqueting and feasting is then used … to the great dishonour of God and the impoverishing of the realm.’

In 1644, Parliament banned Christmas celebrations. Attending mass was forbidden. Under Cromwell’s Commonwealth, mince pies, holly and other popular customs fell victim to the Puritan mission to remove all merrymaking during the Christmas period. To Puritans, the celebration of the Lord’s birth should be day of fasting and prayer.

In England, the Puritan War on Christmas lasted until 1660. In Massachusetts, the ban remained in place until 1687.

So if the conservative broadcasters and religious folk really want a traditional, American Christian Christmas, the solution is simple — don’t have any fun.

Read more about the Puritans in Don’t Know Much About History and America’s Hidden History

Is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?

The famed story of a love affair between an aristocratic lady and her groundskeeper had been cleared for sale a year earlier in the United States.

In defining “obscenity,” Associate Justice Potter Stewart wrote in a famous 1964 Supreme Court decision,

I know it when I see it.

People have been arguing over obscenity and pornography (which in the original Greek meant “to write about prostitutes”), almost since there was writing. For publishers, the label has been a mixed blessing. Books have been burned, banned from the mails, and yanked from library shelves. But the phrase, “Banned in Boston,” eventually became a favorite selling slogan. And many books once deemed “dirty” are now bona fide classics.
Do you think you know obscenity when you see it? Unwrap the plain brown paper around this quiz about some notorious “obscene” books.

1. Which hefty novel depicts a character reading “Titbits” magazine on the toilet, allowing “his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read”?
2. Which memoir did poet Ezra Pound once call “a dirty book worth reading”?
3. What Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, among the most frequently challenged books in American schools, was once banned in a Minnesota town for including the words “damn” and “whore lady”?
4. Which 1881 poetry collection, now considered an American classic, was withdrawn from circulation by its publisher under a District Attorney’s threat of obscenity charges?
Adapted from Don’t Know Much About Literature

Answers
1. Ulysses (1922), by James Joyce. The character described is Leopold Bloom.
2. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller. The novel was published in France in 1934, but banned in the U.S. until 1961.
3. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), by Harper Lee.
4. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1881 edition). In 1865, Whitman had been dismissed from his day job as a clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs after James Harlan, Secretary of the interior, found and read a working copy of Leaves of Grass and considered it obscene.

Here is a link to a brief D.H. Lawrence biography at Poets.org
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/37

But nobody understood the hard facts about the Puritans better than the Society of Friends, or Quakers. On October 14, 1656, the Puritans who ran Massachusetts enacted the first laws against Quakers. The penalty for being a Quaker was ultimately death.

And it wasn’t an empty threat. Late in October 1659, two Quakers were executed by hanging. A third, Mary Dyer, was executed in 1660. And a fourth was hung in 1661. A sister of dissident Anne Hutchinson also became a Quaker. She was spared hanging. The Puritans merely stripped her in public and lashed her.

There is an irony as this date also happen to be the birthday of the most famous Quaker in American history, William Penn, born in 1644. Precisely because the Friends were persecuted in England as well as Massachusetts, Penn received the charter to begin his colony as a haven for Quakers, and other religious dissenters. Under Penn’s liberal leadership which extended to politics as well as religion, Penn’s “Holy Experiment” flourished. (Unfortunately, his son and brother who eventually replaced him did not see things the same way and reversed many of William Penn’s enlightened policies.)
You can read Penn’s “Charter of Libertie” at the Yale Law School Collection of colonial charters and documents. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/pa03.asp

BTW, The man on that box of oats is not William Penn, according to the Quaker Oats company.
Could have fooled me.

“It’s the — the cross is the — is the most common symbol of — of — of the resting place of the dead.”

Those were the words of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia during a Supreme Court questioning session. The case involves a cross honoring veterans that has been placed on federal lands. The fuller context of Scalia’s exchange with an attorney arguing the case can be found in Professor Geoffrey Stone’s recent blog on the Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/justice-scalias-cross_b_314752.html
I’ll leave the legal aspects of this comment to others, like Professor Stone. But I am not sure if Scalia’s assertion is even correct. In many cemeteries –certainly many of those around old New England—a headstone, often devoid of any religious marking, is quite a common symbol of a resting place.

To be precise, we should say that a crucifix and not simply a cross is in question. The empty crucifix is, of course, the central symbol of Christianity as it represents the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I was pondering crosses before I read Scalia’s rather extraordinary remarks about the cross being such a common symbol.

Crosses –or crucifixes—come to mind whenever Columbus Day rolls around. One of the things they never told me back in grade school when we drew pictures of those three iconic sailing ships, was that Columbus used to crucify the natives –the people he misnamed “Indians”—in rows of thirteen; one for Jesus and each of the disciples. This technique was part of Columbus’s work incentive program. If the natives didn’t produce enough gold, he would cut off a hand. Crucifixion was the next step.

In the Caribbean, under Columbus, Justice Scalia may have been right. The cross was the symbol of the resting place of the dead. But I’m not sure that’s what Justice Scalia had in mind.

The catalog of the cruelty of Columbus and the Spanish conquistadors who followed in his wake has been well documented, even in Columbus’ own time. Far less familiar is the story of the French Protestants executed by the Spanish near St. Augustine, Florida on October 12, 1565. The spot where this atrocity took place is now marked by Fort Matanzas, a national monument whose name comes from the Spanish word for “slaughters.”

The point is not that the Spanish had any monopoly on religious cruelty or sectarian violence. The Protestant majority in America has a lengthy victims list as well –Quakers, Catholics, Mormons and other minority Christians and other groups of believers and nonbelievers have all felt the sting of secular violence. The litany of sectarian killings and religious intolerance that has been such a grotesque but significant piece of America’s “hidden history” is exactly the reason that some of the Framers thought the First Amendment was so necessary. George Washington said so himself to a group of people who did not recognize the cross – the members of America’s first synagogue:

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.

You can read more about Columbus and his impact in Don’t Know Much About History and the story of the Fort Matanzas massacre in America’s Hidden History.

Separated by more than century and a continent, they might seem like unconnected events. But these are two extraordinary moments in the history of a so-called “Christian nation” and –more to the point– its treatment of Native Americans.

Born in London, Roger Williams came to Massachusetts with the great emigration of Puritans who sailed to America, escaping persecution in England. But after speaking out for religious freedom and even more shockingly, dealing fairly with Indians, Williams was banished by the Puritan authorities from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in October 1635. The Puritans who came to Massachusetts sought religious freedom– their own, not anyone else’s.
Williams lived briefly with friendly natives, established a settlement at Providence, and later won a charter for the colony of Rhode Island.

Williams pioneered two central ideas:
-Civil authority should not have religious authority. He coined the phrase “wall of separation,” later used by Jefferson.
-People should have freedom of conscience in religious matters– what he called “soul liberty.”
He would write:

God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.

These ideas later found expression in the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Followers of Junipero Serra, the Franciscan priests who founded a mission that later developed into San Francisco, had very different ideas about both religious authority and Indians. Anchored by a church, the mission included a presidio –or frontier fort– and an agricultural settlement. The chain of California missions begun by Serra were essentially forced labor camps in which Indians –”neophytes”– were required to convert. The death toll in missions such as San Francisco was appalling. Disease, harsh treatment, severe punishments and the commonplace rape of Indian women by Spanish soldiers took a devastating toll on California’s native population, practically wiping out California’s original inhabitants.

Of course, the natives of New England ultimately did not fare any better than those of California. Roger Williams’s enlightened approach to native Americans did not take hold. But these two very different chapters in “America’s Hidden History” speak volumes about a past that has been sanitized for the tourist trade and textbooks.
Here is a link to the Roger Williams National Memorial in Rhode Island–
http://www.nps.gov/rowi/historyculture/index.htm

Here is a link to some San Francisco history resources:
http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=SETTLEMENT_OF_SAN_FRANCISCO_%281776%29

In real fact, the trial began as a sort of small-town  publicity stunt. But the argument at its center, between the Bible and Charles Darwin, still isn’t settled in many minds. This is one issue that just won’t go away.

The drama began when Tennessee made it a crime to teach Darwin’s evolutionary theories in Tennessee schools under a 1925 law called the “Butler Act.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

Seizing on the law as an assault on free speech, the American Civil Liberties Union –then neither as famous nor infamous as it is today– posted a newspaper notice offering its services to defend anyone who wanted to challenge the law. Some local boosters in a Dayton, Tennessee drugstore thought that such a trial would be a great way to drum up publicity for the town which had seen better days. They sought out a young substitute science teacher named John Scopes. And with the cooperation of the school superintendent and two local attorneys who were friends of Scopes, the 24-year-old Scopes was arrested and charged with defying the Butler Act by using a textbook that introduced Darwin’s theories.

The key to the national attention the 8-day trial received was the presence of William Jennings Bryan, a politician who had run unsuccessfully for the Presidency three times (in 1896, 1900 and 1908) and was renowned for his skill as a stump speaker. A fundamentalist and populist known as “the Great Commoner,” Bryan was leading a crusade against Darwin, in part to keep his public profile high. Bryan joined the prosecution team. Opposing him was the most famous defense attorney of his day, Clarence Darrow.

Quickly nicknamed the “Monkey Trial,” the proceedings inspired a carnival-like atmosphere, just as the Dayton boosters had hoped, attracting thousands of spectators to the small county courthouse, along with journalists from around the country. Among them was H.L. Mencken, the iconoclastic Baltimore newsman, who had called Bryan the “Fundamentalist Pope.” Live updates from the proceedings were also broadcast on the radio, a first for a trial.

The culmination of the trial was the seventh-day exchange between Darrow and Bryan after Darrow called the fundamentalist leader to the stand as an expert witness on the Bible. He then dismantled most of Bryan’s arguments regarding the literal truth of the Bible.

After this withering exchange, Darrow actually asked the judge to convict Scopes. He hoped that the case would go to a higher court where Darrow could appeal the decision on philosophical and Constitutional grounds. Scopes was duly convicted and fined $100 –but not jailed.

A few days after the trial, William Jennings Bryan died in Dayton.

The case was appealed, as Darrow had hoped, but the conviction was overturned on a technicality rather than the Constitutional reversal that Darrow and the ACLU sought. And as recent history surely bears out, the argument  did not end there. Creationist advocates –later using the term “Intelligent Design”– continued the assault on teaching of evolution into recent times. In one of the most decisive modern cases, in Dover, Pennsylvania, Judge John E. Jones, a Republican appointee, handed the forces of “Creationism/Intelligent Design” a stinging defeat on December 20, 2005. In his 139-page ruling, Jones wrote;

Accordingly, we find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause.

Here is the New York Times report on the decision. It includes a complete text of the decision: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/education/21evolution.html?scp=1&sq=dover%20pa%20decision%20creationism&st=cse

The 1925 courtroom drama in Dayton was fictionalized in the 1955 play Inherit the Wind, later made into a 1960 film starring Spencer Tracy, and remade on television several times.

Extensive documentation about the case can be found at the website of the Law School at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm

The “American Experience” (PBS) aired a documentary on the Scopes Trial. Information at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/monkeytrial/