Patrick G. Whalen

Other entries related to this topic:

• Separation of Church and State Overview
• Political Activism and the Social Gospel
  

Recently I began reading about the topic of Separation of Church and State for a US Government research paper. I have come to no firm conclusions as of yet as I am still in the middle of my study on this most interesting topic.

There are probably few people out there that are actually not interested in this subject in some way or another and for good reason. This essential tenet to the United States Constitution is shrouded in controversy almost as old as the country itself.

In fact, I came across this very subject years ago while researching different aspects of spirituality and faith before, during and after the US Civil War. It is most interesting to me that the first political figure to seriously contend for a more liberal religious tolerance was none other than Geroge Washington. General Washington, at the time, strongly pressed for the incorporation of Christian Chaplains into his Continental Army. While this practice was soon adopted and little challenged at first, it became a hot-button item for debate upon ratification of the United States Constitution and the subsequent Bill of Rights.

I also encountered the topic while researching different Christian seminaries being established in Illinois. There were several Constitutional challenges to initial charters based on this establishement and free excercise of religion in the newly formed country.

The Constitution was ratified and adopted on September 17, 1787 and the original 10 amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified on December 15, 1791.  By 1830 however, the First amendment religious rights began to experience their first legal challenges in the United States Supreme Court.

I won’t go into detail here and now, as that is the central point of my research paper, but over time I will discuss several areas of the challenges, victories and defeat of the rights proclaimed in the First Ammendment to the United States Constitution.

It all started in 1991, shortly after joining with a group of reenactors I met at a gun show in Norfolk, Virginia.  Why I went to a guns how, I’ll never know as I really wasn’t interested in guns. Perhaps it was just something to do as a single 20 year old, new to a city with no friends.

Anyway, a few weeks into my newfound reenacting hobby, I packed into the back of a truck one Thursday with a half dozen weekend warriors and headed off to the mountains of Pennsylvania. It was what is termed a “tactical” reenactment and there were no spectators until the big battle on Saturday afternoon.

We arrived in the cold, damp valley, transferred the gear from the truck to our backs and headed down to join the gathering army. I noticed a man wearing black, wandering around the officer tent then in and around the infantrymen. He carried a leather bible and knelt to pray with a few of the men. I was rather non-participatory in things Christian at the time and I pretty much blew it off.

The day went as planned and a raucus battle was capped off with music, song. During that time, more than a few bottles of whiskey were dispersed into various tin cups and enjoyed by all.

The next morning was the big public battle. Cannons volleyed across the high hills as spectators gathered to take in the sights, sounds and smell of nineteenth century warfare. Our brigade lined up behind a tall rise and received some wonderful words of encouragement from our commander. At the completion of his pep-talk, the commander introduced a man he called a chaplain. It was the fellow in black I had noticed the day before.

The words of the chaplain were wrought with out-of-date religious cliche’ and needless to say, it was more pitiful in my sight than the three-hundred pound general I watched trying to mount his horse that morning. The battle was superb, fulfilling everything I had ever imagined.  Once the crowds had gone and a quick dinner of hard-tack crakers and bacon, the festivities of the previous night continued.

Sunday morning was cold, damp and gray. I tried to sleep, but as the sun tried its best to reveal itself from behind the curtain of clouds, I shivered beneath my single, wool blanket. Before long, a drummer began to beat some repetitive tune. Being new to the scene, I asked my tentmate what was going on. He told me it was a call to Church. Ugh…how mundane.

I got up from my losing battle with sleep to warm myself by the fire. While I sat trying to rekindle dying embers, I watched a number of men file by towards the sound of the repeating drum. One man looked my way and motioned for me to come along. My comrades were still sawing logs and there wasn’t much else to do, so I complied.

The Church scene I took in was antiquated and out of touch with everything my enlightened mind knew was right about God and His children. When the service was over, I confronted the chaplain with my plethora of knowledge. He got an earfull from me about how unrealistic it would have been for a man of God to be following unruly soldiers from camp to camp. He challenged my advice and suggested I do some reading of my own. Fine with me, I was up for the challenge.

When I returned home, I went straight to the local library. What ensued was a several week mental marathon. I spent almost every evening unlearning what I thought was true about 1860’s religion. That marathon continues to this very day, with the exception that I submit to the fact that I was incredibly wrong in my assumptions. I learned from that experience to never take anything for granted and to read, read, read. I will forever be grateful to that anonymous chaplain who pointed me towards Jesus Christ.

Today’s tract is, well, not a tract. I am still finding it a challenge to locate online transcriptions of Union tracts. I have, however, located several sermons pronounced before, during and after the war.  In place of Union tracts, I am pleased to bring sermons by Northern preachers for your perusal.

(Most of these sermons will need to be broken into several Tuesdays due to their length)

THE DEATH OF FREEDOM – Part 1

A sermon preached at Wilbraham, Mass., May 28, 1854, on the occasion of the passage of the Nebraska Bill, by the Senate of the United States, on the midnight of Thursday,  May 25, 1854

“THE BEAUTY OF ISRAEL IS SLAIN UPON THY HIGH PLACES; 2 Samuel i. 19
“AND SAUL WAS CONSENTING UNTO HIS DEATH; Acts viii. 1
“THERE WAS DARKNESS OVER ALL THE LAND.” Matt. xxviii. 45

We gather to-day around the corpse of Freedom. Our nation has given up the ghost. Her deadly sickness has met with but feeble resistance to its progress; and today it waves its black banner in acknowledged triumph over her prostrate, corrupting form. The beauty of Israel is slain upon her high-places. As we bend over this fallen glory and strength, I shall try to speak of that vanished strength and glory, of the means and the foe that murdered it:

“Show you sweet” Freedom’s “wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths! And bid them speak for me.”

I ask you to consider your duty as Christians in this dreadful hour, and to see with the eye of prophecy either her resurrection in a greatness never before displayed, like that of her Divine Author on His reappearance from the grave – a resurrection that shall send despair and ruin through the ranks of her murderers, or, if we are permanently stupefied by the dragon that has triumphed over us, behold with the same clear vision the still more fearful spectacle of a contending, ruined, obliterated nation.

“A curse shall light upon the limbs of men, Domestic fury and fierce civil strife Will cumber all the parts of this fair land.”

You may say “This is a sick man’s dream.” “Is not this a free land? Has it not been consecrated by the prayers and sacred sufferings of the Pilgrims, honored by the patriotic valor of the revolutionary fathers, made illustrious by the wisdom of Washington and Jefferson, of Hamilton and Adams? Is it not a land whose institutions are based on the broadest principles of liberty – a land of wealth and enterprise, comfort and culture, churches and piety? And can this land be wrapped in its grave clothes, and be even now an offense and a loathing among the nations of the earth? Impossible! Does not trade rush through its crowded channels? Does not the earth bring forth abundantly, laughing ever with its munificent harvests? Does not labor’ strike with its hundred hands at the golden gates of the morning’? Does not steam toil in our factories, and whirl its products over all the land? Do not sweet bells call to church? Are we not the greatest, freest, happiest of nations? ” Alas! ” Gray hairs were on him, and he knew it not.” “When ye say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon him, and he cannot escape.” Material life flows on after the spiritual has gone. Chemical laws keep the atoms of a dead body for a while as compact as when it tented a soul.

There is no national life. What exists, exists in obstruction, weakness, obscury. Last Thursday we surrendered all our glorious heritage. We gave up the Declaration of Independence, the revolutionary speeches, and battles of fire and blood, the Constitution of our country, the names of our Pilgrim and Puritan ancestry, our hopes and prospects, our morals and religion. We have laid them all at the feet of Slavery. We confess ourselves her slaves. We open our gates for her triumphal march to unquestioned, universal power.

I ask no pardon for bringing this subject before you on this sacred day. I have waited till the strife raging at the seat of government should end, feeling that I had no need to stimulate you to your duty to pray for those there and then engaged in the contest, and that this word should be spoken when that battle was decided. I had hoped against hope that the right would triumph, and that I could have congratulated you on the first national step that liberty had taken towards a final victory. But that day is not yet, if ever. A far different task awaits me, and by God’s grace I hope to discharge it. Let us, with sackcloth and ashes upon our souls, sit around this corpse of American Freedom deliver its funeral serm-non, and gather, if we can, some reasons for its resurrection, and of our part and lot in bringing about the glory of that distant hour. Let us try to answer the question, how can these things be?

Five years ago, or fifty, — any previous year since we became a nation, such a deed could not have happened. Southerner and Northerner would have responded in burning indignation to a charge of his devotion to such a crime, Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing? Does not my belief that slavery is an evil, my sensitiveness to the honor of the country through its pledge faithfully made in the compromise agreement of 1820, show the injustice of your imputations? ” And yet this act is a necessary result of all previous acts. It is the perfect fruit of germs long since planted, and constantly nurtured. It is a link in an iron chain of our whole national history. In the first Concession made to the slave powers, this monster was born.

PART TWO >>

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Source: University of Michigan, Making of America, National Sermons, The Death of Freedom

Further Reading

Government and Rebellion (sermon delivered on the outbreak of the Civil War)

Reverend E.E. Adams. B&R Samizdat Express 2008, Kindle Edition, $0.99

Sermons on slavery & the civil war.

Unknown author. Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library 2006, Paperback, 514 pages, $23.44

Our civil war, as seen from the pulpit

William Rounseville Alger. Cornell University Library 1861, Paperback, 24 pages, $8.09

Battle Cry of Freedom

James M. McPherson. Oxford University Press, USA 2003, Paperback, 952 pages, $12.21

As Civil War scholarship continues to grow and gain momentum in these few short months leading up to the sesquicentennial memorials, one field of study remains largely neglected. While there is some renewed interest in the role and influence of religion and spirituality before, during, and after the Civil War; this subject remains vastly uncovered in popular discussions.

Even so, the rising number of publications pertaining to religious histories and views of the 1850′s and 1860′s continue to minimize at least two distinct groups: Catholics and Jews. These may not have been the prevailing wind of spiritual doctrine in those days, but they did play a role in shaping the history of the war and the United States of America.

So far my search for more information on this topic has yielded little fruit. Stephen Woodward made some mention of the Jewish influence of the Civil War in his book, While God is Marching On, but the broadest portion of his work centers upon Protestant Christianity.

I did find one great source on the internet regarding the Jewish influence throughout all of history, including the Civil War:

Jews in the Civil War

Further Reading

Antisemitism from the Top

Jewish-Americans in the Civil War

While God Is Marching on

Steven E. Woodworth. University Press of Kansas 2003, Paperback, 406 pages, $12.33

The Jewish Confederates (NS)

Robert N. Rosen. University of South Carolina Press 2000, Hardcover, 544 pages, $24.51

Judah P. Benjamin

Eli Evans. Free Press 1989, Paperback, 512 pages, $12.55

A Jewish Colonel in the Civil War

Jean Powers Soman (Editor). University of Nebraska Press 1995, Paperback, 353 pages, $6.47

I forgot to mention that Sharlyn Guthrie (Dancin’ On Rainbows) is hosting today’s Friday Fiction…

Another of my former FaithWriters Challenge entries…

Slough of Despondence – 08.14.08

I sat in the crook of a majestic Tupelo, bewildered and betwixt. Shadows, formed by a yellow half-moon, taunted my imagination. Beyond the stinging and ringing in my head came the ratcheting click-click-click of the King Rail and the throaty yelp of the Black Crowned Heron. Rather than speaking to me, they seemed to speak about me. A mosquito buzzed relentless about my ear as if it too had something to say.

The gray woolen jacket that hung on my shoulders was damp and cold. A fire would lift my spirit. As I gathered small sticks and twigs, I noticed a bullet-shaped hole in my right sleeve, stained red. A fire might not be safe, but I was strangely cold. I placed the woody bundle on the soft mossy ground.

As I drew out a small box of Lucifers from my pocket, a paper fell to the ground, but it was unreadable in the faint light. I struck a match and lit the bundle. Hungry flames licked at the twigs as I added more to the pile. The growing fire cast new shadows that frolicked and danced with those of the moon above. I reached for the paper and through blurred eyes made out the bold text: “Lieutenant Fallon, 35th Alabama Regiment.”

“No, its Jeff…” the strange words came from my mouth with mixed restraint. I sat down to warm myself. “Secesh.” That didn’t sound right. My memory was a jumble of thoughts and scarce reality. Another word came, “Yellow Hammer.”

Something inside told me the voice was out of place. There was a distinct tone and inflection that jerked at my conscience. I looked at the paper again. A sudden rush of hatred and pain boiled up so hot within me that I doubled over on my side.

A single ray of sun warmed my face and woke me from my slumber. I raised my hand to shield my eyes and through crimson stained fingers I saw a familiar form. Above me, in the jumble of tupelo and cypress, two limbs came together to form a cross. Another round of ringing came and I fought off the urge to close my eyes.

My right hand failed me, so with my left, I pushed against the ground and rose to my knees. “My Lord, my God, I have forgotten myself, but I have not forgotten you. I pray that if it be your will, that I may be rescued from this present trouble.”

A breeze stirred up the stale air and the whisper through Spanish moss calmed me. Then, above the breeze, I heard footsteps splashing and dripping from behind. There was nowhere to run! I reached for a pistol that should have been there, but it wasn’t. I searched my belt, jacket, and the ground around me, but for naught.

I leapt into the crook of the tree and waited, and listened. The King Rail and Heron were gone, but the faithful mosquito still nipped at my ear. I wanted to swat but dared not move. The buzz grew louder as the footsteps drew near, then all went silent. I risked a slight turn to get a look.

In front of me, ankle deep in the dank brown slough stood a chestnut mare with an empty saddle. With little to lose, I approached her with tender, easy steps. She turned her head towards me and appeared to snicker at my caution. I grabbed the reigns, stepped into the stirrup and lifted myself onto her muscular back.

Without knowing where I was, or where to go, I gave her a mild nudge and let the reigns hang free. Her gentle steps carried us forward through the mud and water and soon found solid ground. The gentle, familiar sway of her gait lulled me to sleep.

“Whoa there!” The voice startled me from my dreams and I began to slide from the saddle. Someone caught me. “It’s Lieutenant Jeffries! Call the surgeon at once!”

The word “surgeon” snapped me from my haze. “Bully for the surgeon! He’ll saw my arm of for the joy of it. Take me to Chaplain Reynolds. I reached into the saddlebag and removed a map marked with my own hand. “Make sure this gets to Colonel Maskin. The marks are the enemy positions.”

I reached Chaplain Reynolds’ tent and he allowed me to fall upon his cot. “So Lieutenant, how is the life of a spy?”

“Chaplain, I did my job, and God did His.”