The American Character

One of our relatively forgotten Founding Fathers is James Wilson, a signatory of The Declaration of Independence, a member of the Continental Congress, and among the first six Supreme Court justices chosen by President George Washington. One the most prominent lawyers of his time, Wilson is often credited as being the most learned of the Framers of the Constitution.

James Wilson was also someone who fretted over the youth of America and strongly advocated teaching young children the principles of liberty, freedom, and justice which inspired the American Revolution. Wilson takes on the teacher’s role in the following passage (from Of the Study of the Law in the United States), where we find him touching on the topic of the American character and how both the law and religion can degenerate into ridiculousness when in the hands of their “injudicious friends” who today many would say have become the majority.

Were I called upon for my reasons why I deem so highly of the American character, I would assign them in a very few words–that is, that the American character has been eminently distinguished by the love of liberty, and the love of law. The science of law should, in some measure, and in some degree, be the study of every free citizen, and of every free person. Every free citizen and every free person has duties to perform and rights to claim. Unless, in some measure, and in some degree, you know those duties and those rights, you can never act a just and an independent part.

Happily, the general and most important principles of law are not removed to a very great distance from common apprehension. It has been said of religion that though the elephant may swim in it, the lamb may wade there too. Concerning law, the same observation may be made. The home navigation, carried on along the shores, is more necessary, and more useful too, than that which is pursued through the deep and expanded ocean.

You have heard much concerning the forms of process, and proceedings, and pleadings. Much has been written in praise, and much has been written in ridicule, of this part of law learning. It has certainly been abused: in some hands, it has become, and daily does become ridiculous. And what is there that has been exempted from a similar fate! Religion herself, elegant and simple as she is, assumes yet an awkward and ridiculous appearance when dressed in the tawdry or tattered robes put upon her by the false taste of her injudicious friends.¹

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Read the next article in our series on the Founding Fathers: Ethan Allen on God, Reason, Prayer, & Religion.

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1. The above quote by James Wilson has been lightly edited for brevity and ease of reading. [↩]

Common Sense Christianity

The old saying “there is nothing common about common sense” has never rung so true as it does today. We live in a course and relativist age where the noble drive for fairness and balance has been misdirected toward conflating opinions with facts, and where common sense lies buried beneath a rubble of truthiness. That being the case, it might be a good idea to return to the writer of Common Sense, Thomas Paine, for a little refresher on reasonable thinking.

Wrongly accused of atheism by the orthodox Christians of his time (and, later on, a strident Teddy Roosevelt), Thomas Paine is among the many American figures who form the bedrock upon which current Progressive Christianity has its house. With regards to an afterlife, Paine held the reasonable position that we can hope for happiness after this life but shouldn’t presume to guess what lies in store for us:

I consider myself in the hands of my Creator and that He will dispose of me after this life consistent with His justice and goodness. I leave all these matters to Him, as my Creator and friend and I hold it presumptuous to make an article of faith as to what the Creator will do with us hereafter.

It was by leaving the afterlife to God, and the dead to bury their dead¹, that Thomas Paine was able to follow Christ, carrying the kingdom of God within himself, to fulfill the living hour of his time.

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1. To another man Jesus said: “Follow me.” “Let me first go and bury my father,” said the man. But Jesus said: “Leave the dead to bury their dead; but go yourself and carry far and wide the gospel of the kingdom of God.” – Luke 9:59-60 [↩]