The Revelation of Freedom
It has been called “Washington’s Legacy.” The Boston Evening Post described it as “most incomparable.” Elias Boudinot, an American Founder who served as President of the Continental Congress and helped design the Great Seal of the United States, said the document gave the “finishing stroke to [George Washington’s] inimitable character” (qtd. In Freeman, 446). The document to which the above statements refer is Washington’s Circular Letter to the States, June 8, 1783. Douglas Southhall Freeman, Pulitzer award-winning biographer of George Washington wrote: “The circular . . . was acclaimed as no paper sent out over his signature ever had been” (446).
In his 2009 book, The Political Philosophy of George Washington, Jeffry Morrison provides a summation of the purpose of Washington’s Circular: “Washington mistakenly expected this to be his final political statement, and as such the Circular reveals much of his mind regarding what was needed for Americans of 1783 to ‘establish or ruin their national Character forever’ and the role of religion in establishing that character. . . . The Circular was directed to the governors of the thirteen newly independent states and was delivered to them six months before Washington returned his commission as Commander of the Army . . .” (148). In the last paragraph of the 4,000-word document, Washington included the following: “I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would . . . most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do Justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves, with Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind. . . the Characteristicks of the Divine Author . . . [which] without an humble imitation of . . . these things, we never hope to be a happy Nation” (149).
As Washington addressed the nation, he affirmed that “the foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy Age of Ignorance and Superstition, but . . . when the rights of Mankind were better understood and more clearly defined . . . [and] the treasures of knowledge acquired . . . the unbounded extension of Commerce . . . Refinement of manners . . . and above all, the pure and benign light of Revelation . . . had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society” (emp. Added). Note the words “Above all”!
Morrison writes, “[F]or Washington, the most important component of the foundation of the American Empire was revelation. . . . Readers of the late eighteenth century . . . would have understood ‘Revelation’ to mean the Bible, including the Old and New Testaments, and Washington singled out that scriptural revelation as ‘above all’ the most important sustainer of American society” (151). Washington spoke of the “benign light of Revelation” (emp. Added). Rather than being a threat or danger to a nation, Washington saw Scripture’s revelation as non-threatening—in fact, it is the case that Christianity’s revelation improves civil society. “In the Circular [Washington] had claimed that the revelation of the Bible was the most important boon [benefit, blessing] to society in history” (171).
It was clear to Washington, as it was to the majority of the Founders, that there can be no true liberty (freedom) without virtue. Furthermore, there can be no virtue without religion. For Washington, and most of the Founders, this meant there could be no true religion without revelation. And the essential revelation for Washington was the Bible. The Bible itself affirms the necessity of revelation in order to have civil society. The Old Testament states, “Without revelation people run wild but one who keeps the law will be happy” (Proverbs 29:18, CSB). When Robert Owen proposed to establish his New Harmony Utopia by ignoring the Bible, Alexander Campbell cautioned Owen that it was yet to be demonstrated that a society could be moral (virtuous) without Christianity, which was another way of saying without the Bible. A Wall Street Journal editorial awhile back addressed what it called “social and spiritual deficit” today in the form of such things as family dysfunction, school shootings, decline of churches, “collapse of cultural guardrails” et al.
The Bible provides the complete and final content to guide both reason and emotion (cf. 2 Timothy 3:14-17). Historian Earl West summarized it well when he wrote, “‘Christianity, the safeguard of our republic and hope of the world.’ Thus biblical principles operated in the founding of the nation, in selecting its constitution and political institutions, in guiding her educational enterprises, in shaping her moral complexion and in making her people aware of their continuing responsibilities to God. These divine precepts, woven like a golden thread through the fabric of the nation, have enabled it to stand unique and proud among the nations of the world.” (“The Bible and the American Nation” in 1971 Harding Graduate School Lectures, 234). A decade following West’s observation, Newsweek magazine published a seven-page front cover story, “The Bible in America,” which begins with the following: “Now historians are discovering that the Bible, perhaps even more than the Constitution, is our founding document” (44).
“Washington’s Legacy,” recognized and acknowledged, with favor, “the foundation of our Empire” being laid, above all, in “the pure and benign light of Revelation” (the Bible). Revelation is at the foundation of true freedom. Biblical revelation and true freedom are indivisible!
Charles C. Pugh III
Executive Director
Works Cited:
Freeman, Douglas Southall. George Washington: A Biography. Vol. 5. New York: Scribner’s 1952.
Morrison, Jeffry H. The Political Philosophy of George Washington. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2009.
Washington, George. “From George Washington to the States, 8 June 1873.” Founders.archives.gov.
West, Earl. “The Bible and the American Nation.” Harding Graduate School Lectures. 1971