Calvin's Academy in Virginia?

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. -- Inscribed on the library of the Academy of Geneva

Although Thomas Jefferson's hatred of John Calvin and Calvin's God is well-known,* it is less well-known that he once viewed with great favor a proposal put forward by François D'Ivernois (1757-1842) to transplant Calvin's Academy from Geneva to Northern Virginia. A 1794 attempt by revolutionaries to overthrow Geneva's government which targeted the faculty and ministers with imprisonment led D'Ivernois to reach out to American contacts later that year, including both Jefferson and John Adams, to negotiate for the school's relocation to the States. The plan fell apart due to a return to the status quo in Geneva as well as a lack of support from the Virginia legislature, which never voted on the proposal but conveyed in back channels to Wilson Nicholas, a confidante and go-between of Jefferson, its reasons, which in turn Jefferson reported to D'Ivernois.

In a letter to D'Ivernois dated February 6, 1795, Jefferson wrote:

Your proposition, however, for transplanting the college of Geneva to my own country, was too analogous to all my attachments to science, & freedom, the first-born daughter of science, not to excite a lively interest in my mind, and the essays which were necessary to try it's practicability.

He then listed the reasons for the lack of support from the Virginia legislature:

The reasons which they thought would with certainty prevail against it, were 1. that our youth, not familiarized but with their mother tongue, were not prepared to receive instructions in any other; 2d. that the expence of the institution would excite uneasiness in their constituents, & endanger it's permanence; & 3. that it's extent was disproportioned to the narrow state of the population with us.

George Washington later wrote to Jefferson (March 15, 1795) about the matter and listed further reasons for the lack of support:

Hence you will perceive that I have, in a degree, anticipated your proposition. I was restrained from going the whole length of the suggestion, by the following considerations: 1st, I did not know to what extent, or when any plan would be so matured for the establishment of an University, as would enable any assurance to be given to the application of Mr. D'Ivernois. 2d, the propriety of transplanting the Professors in a body, might be questioned for several reasons; among others, because they might not be all good characters; nor all sufficiently acquainted with our language; and again, having been at variance with the levelling party of their own country, the measure might be considered as an aristocratical movement by more than those who, without any just cause that I have been able to discover, are continually sounding the alarm bell of aristocracy. and 3d, because it might preclude some of the first Professors in other countries from a participation; among whom some of the most celebrated characters in Scotland, in this line, I am told might be obtained.

It was not Reformed orthodoxy that appealed to Jefferson; the Genevan Academy by that time had forsaken theological orthodoxy for "enlightenment" and devoted itself to the pursuit of science instead. There was no plan to establish a bastion of Calvinism in Virginia, but Jefferson did earnestly desire to build public education in the young United States, and just as he appreciated Calvin's political theories of resistance, he appreciated the Academy of Calvin as it existed in 1795, if not 1559. He went on to establish the University of Virginia in Charlottesville some years later, which was ahead of its time in banning the teaching of theology altogether.**

As a Virginian, I hope that one day a home-grown institution along the lines of Calvin's vision more than Jefferson's will be planted "over the river and under the shade of the trees."

*Jefferson letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823:

I can never join Calvin in addressing his God. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5. points is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore; but a daemon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all than to blaspheme by the atrocious attributes of Calvin.

Jefferson letter to William Short, April 13, 1820:

The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most intolerant of all sects; the most tyrannical and ambitious, ready at the word of the law-giver, if such a word could now be obtained, to put their torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere the flame in which their oracle, Calvin, consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not find in his Euclid the proposition which has demonstrated that three are one, and one is three, nor subscribe to the proposition of Calvin, that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to the Calvinistic creed. They pant to re-establish by law that holy inquisition which they can now only infuse into public opinion.

**Jefferson letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, October 7, 1814:

I agree with yours of the 22d, that a professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution.

Jefferson letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, November 2, 1822:

The atmosphere of our country is unquestionably charged with a threatening cloud of fanaticism, lighter in some parts, denser in others, but too heavy in all. I had no idea, however, that in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration and freedom of religion, it could have arisen to the height you describe. This must be owing to the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to denunciation....

In our university you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to the institution. In our annual report to the legislature, after stating the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets, on the confines of the university, so near as that their students may attend the lectures there, and have the free use of our library, and every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other. This fills the chasm objected to ours, as a defect in an institution professing to give instruction in all useful sciences. I think the invitation will be accepted, by some sects from candid intentions, and by others from jealousy and rivalship. And by bringing the sects together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality.

Wallace's Oak

Freedom is best, I tell thee true, of all things to be won; then never live within the bonds of slavery, my son. -- Attributed to William Wallace's uncle.

There once was an ancient oak tree in the Torwood, near Falkirk, Scotland. It was reputed to be a common resting place for none other than William Wallace, Scotland's most famous patriot. It lived for centuries evidently; the painting here is by A. Nasmyth (1771). Sir Walter Scott records how he would retire there before or after battle in Tales of A Grandfather (1st series, 1828), Chap. 7:

A large oak-tree in the adjoining forest was long shown as marking the spot where Wallace slept before the battle, or, as others said, in which he hid himself after the defeat. Nearly forty years ago Grandpapa [Scott himself] saw some of its roots; but the body of the tree was even then entirely decayed, and there is not now, and has not been for many years, the least vestige of it to be seen.

Magnus Magnusson, Scotland: The Story of a Nation (2000), pp. 146-147:

Oak wood has long been revered in Scotland as a potent symbol of strength, hardness and durability. Until two centuries ago there was a vast oak tree known as 'Wallace's Oak' in the Torwood, a couple of miles north of Falkirk. In 1723 it was described as having a girth of thirty-six feet, still bearing leaves and acorns, and 'ever excepted from cutting when the wood is sold'. Fifty years later its girth measured as twenty-two feet at four feet above the ground by a John Walker, who observed that 'whatever may be its age, it certainly has in its ruins the appearance of greater antiquity than what I have observed in any tree in Scotland...it has been immemorially held in veneration and is still viewed in that light.' But, as Sir Walter Scott and others reported, by the end of the eighteenth century no trace of it remained, and efforts to pinpoint the exact site of the tree have been somewhat conjectural.

Tangible relics of 'Wallace's Oak' remain, however. The great tree was ultimately, and literally, loved to death by souvenir hunters. In the 1790s a piece of it was made into a box by the goldsmiths of Edinburgh and presented to George Washington, first President of the United States, as 'the Wallace of America'; this relic does not survive, alas -- it was stolen in a stage-coach raid in the 1820s and never seen again. The last of the roots of the tree was excavated to make a snuff box which was presented to King George IV on the occasion of his celebrated Royal Visit to Edinburgh in 1822...

Today, Wallacebank Wood, owned by the Glenbervice Golf Club, and managed along with the Scottish Wildlife Trust as a Wildlife Reserve, is home to coppiced descendants of the Wallace Oak.

William Hetherington wrote a poetic tribute to the Wallace Oak in Twelve Dramatic Sketches, founded on the Pastoral Poetry of Scotland (1829), which is recorded in James Grant Wilson, The Poets and Poetry of Scotland: From the Earliest to the Present Time (1876), Half-Vol. 4, p. 263:

The Torwood Oak

The Torwood Oak! How like a spell
By potent wizard breathed, that name
Bids every Scottish bosom swell,
And burn with all a patriot's flame!

The past before the rapt eye brings --
Forth stalk the phantom shades of kings,
And loud the warrior's bugle rings
O'er gory fields of blood!

I see the Roman eagle whet
Its hungry beak, I see it soar;
It stoops, I see its pinions wet,
Ruffled and wet with its own gore:
I see the Danish raven sweep
O'er the dark bosom of the deep, --
Its scatter'd plumage strows the steep
Of rugged Albin's shore.

Lo! England's Edward comes! -- the plain
Groans where his marshall'd thousands wheel,
Grim Havoc stalks o'er heaps of slain,
Gaunt Famine, prowling, dogs his heel!
Ah! woe for Scotland! blood and woe!
Fierce and relentless is the foe,
And treason points the murderous blow,
Edges the ruthless steel!

But who is he with dauntless brow,
And dragon crest, and eagle eye,
Whose proud form never knew to bow
Its lofty port and bearing high?
Around him close a glorious band, --
Few -- but the chosen of the land;
Beneath the Torwood Tree they stand,
Freedom to gain, or die!

'Tis he, the bravest of the brave!
Champion of Scotland's liberty,
Whose mighty arm and dreadful glaive
His mother-land could thrice set free!
That hero-patriot, whose great name
Justly the foremost rank may claim
Of that grace the rolls of fame --
WALLACE OF ELDERSLIE!

Yes, oft the Torwood Oak has bent
Its broad boughs o'er his noble head;
Oft, in his hour of peril, lent
The shelter of its friendly shade;
And though rude Time and stern Decay
Its moulder'd stem have swept away,
The hero's name there dwells for aye --
A name that cannot fade!

Treaty of Tripoli

Piracy is an age-old scourge which has re-asserted itself in the 21st century. In the late 18th century, the young United States of America found itself in conflict with pirates on the Barbary Coast of the Mediterranean from the Muslim states of (what is now) Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. These pirates were also slave traders who sold Christians into slavery with particular relish. Under George Washington's administration, U.S. Consul-General to the Barbary States Joel Barlow was designated to negotiate a series of peace treaties. One of them, the 1796-1797 Treaty of Tripoli (Tripoli, Libya) stands out for its notorious Article 11.

Article 11 of the English translation of the document reads:

ARTICLE 11.

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This article has been the source of much discussion as to the views of America's Founding Fathers concerning whether America was founded constitutionally as a Christian nation. Several points must be noted:

1) The English translation of the document by Joel Barlow varies considerably from the wording of the Arabic original. There is some question as to whether Article 11 in fact exists in the Arabic original at all.

2) A copy of the treaty bearing George Washington's signature is clearly a fraud, since it was negotiated during his administration but not ratified and signed until John Adams was in office.

3) Gary DeMar points out that treaties involving the United States and Great Britain were signed in 1783 and 1822 which refer to a Trinitarian God in the preface, which would indicate some measure of profession of Christianity by our nation.

4) The 1796-1797 Treaty of Tripoli was read aloud to the U.S. Senate prior to a recorded vote which was unanimous in its approval and ratification of the document -- in its form as an English translation, the third such unanimous recorded vote by Congress in American history.

5) The 1796-1797 Treaty of Tripoli was broken by continued pirate attacks, and had to be renegotiated under Thomas Jefferson's administration; the 1805 Treaty of Tripoli omits the aforementioned language that America "is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion," it does include the following statement:

ARTICLE 14^th

As the Government of the United States of America, has in itself no character of enmity against the Laws, Religion or Tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any voluntary war or act of hostility against any Mahometan Nation, except in the defence of their just rights to freely navigate the High Seas: It is declared by the contracting parties that no pretext arising from Religious Opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the Harmony existing between the two Nations; And the Consuls and Agents of both Nations respectively, shall have liberty to exercise his Religion in his own house; all slaves of the same Religion shall not be Impeded in going to said Consuls house at hours of Prayer.

What can be said about these facts? John Eidsmoe has an appendix on the subject in Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of Our Founding Fathers, pp. 413-415, and he also addresses the issue in response to William Edgar argument for National Confessionalism in Gary Scott Smith, ed., God and Politics: Four Views of the Reformation of Civil Government (Theonomy, Principled Pluralism, Christian America, National Confessionalism), p. 226. He considers Edgar's reference to this treaty to be "grasp[ing] at straws in order to debunk America's Christian heritage." David Barton in Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution and Religion, pp. 126-130, and Gary DeMar in America's Christian History, pp. 131-144, are equally dismissive of the relevance of this treaty.

DeMar's theory is that to the extent Article 11 is worth addressing it may reflect an effort to smooth over the negotiation process by alleviating fears that America would engage in a Crusade against the Dey of Tripoli.

A survey of the state constitutions, charterse, national pronouncements, and official declarations of the thirteen state governments would convince any representative from Tripoli that America was a Christian nation by law. The American consul in Algiers, Joel Barlow, had to construct a treaty that would assure the Dey of Tripoli that troops would not be used to impose Christianity on a Muslim people.
...
Tripoli may have feared a crusade-like invasion from the American navy. (Muslims well remembered the Crusades and the expulsion of Muslims from Grenada by Ferdinand and Isabella.) America was not founded as a Christian nation in the same way that Libya was founded as a Muslim nation. "Christianity was not an American state religion and therefore the United States government bore no official hostility toward Mohammadanism." The Dey of Tripoli had to be convinced that America would not impose its Christianity on the Muslim people by force. "Could it have been that in Article 11, America was assuring Tripoli and all of the Barbary states that the United States did not have a state church system and would therefore not attack Tripoli for religious reasons of forced conversion?" This seems to be the best explanation of the phrase found in Article 11 of the Treaty (ibid, pp. 137-138).

There is a significant problem with this theory, however; if Article 11 exists only in the English translation and not in the Arabic, one wonders how it would serve to reassure the Dey of Tripoli of anything.

The concession by DeMar that America is not a Christian nation in the official sense of that term is consistent with U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Brewer's proclamation in the case of Holy Trinity Church v. United States (1892) that (after listing a series of references and allusions to Christianity in official U.S. documents) "these and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation." (See also David J. Brewer, The United States: A Christian Nation, with an introduction by Gary DeMar.) It is also consistent with the understanding of Article 11 that the United States is in fact, as it plainly states, "not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; [and] it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen." America, it is admitted by "Christian America" proponents is not constitutionally and officially Christian; to be described as Christian, one must reach for a volume of unofficial utterances to substantiate that conclusion. If this be granted, then let it be granted also that the 1796-1797 Treaty of Tripoli simply affirms this too, that America is officially not a Christian nation, and as such has no official enmity grounded in religion with Muslim nations.

The heart of the matter is how one understands a nation to be "Christian." Brewer, for example, makes all sorts of acknowledgments that America is not Christian as understood in the conventional sense of the word, yet concludes that it is in some way actually Christian.

But in what sense can it be called a Christian nation? Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or that the people are in any manner compelled to support it....Neither is it Christian in the sense that all its citizens are either in fact or in name Christian. On the contrary, all religions have free scope within our borders. Numbers of our people profess other religions, and many reject all. Nor is it Christian in the sense that a profession of Christianity is a condition of holding office or otherwise engaging in the public service, or essential to recognition either politically or socially. In fact, the government as a legal organization is independent of all religions.

Nevertheless, we constantly speak of this republic as a Christian nation -- in fact, as the leading Christian nation of the world. (ibid, pp. 13-14).

What follows is a catalogue of references to Christianity in the colonial history of the United States and allusions to Christianity in connection with its birth as a nation through the Declaration of Independence and Constitution which are increasingly obscure as the effort to prove that the "Sundays excepted" within the constitutional requirements for legislation to become statutory law helps demonstrate somehow that America is a Christian nation shows (ibid, pp. 13-30).

To return to the Treaty of Tripoli specifically, the historical record of this treaty's negotiations and translation, it is to be admitted, is murky, and clouded unnecessarily by George Washington's alleged signature, but the fact remains -- a fact not addressed head-on by Eidsmoe or DeMar or Barton -- regardless of what the original Arabic document said, it was the English translation that was read aloud (it is a relatively short document), and unanimously approved and ratified, which included Article 11 as we see it here today. In fact, upon signing the treaty in 1797, John Adams issued the following statement:

Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.

So, again, what inferences can we draw from all of this? Clearly, it is the English translation of the treaty that must be reckoned with, and it was approved two branches of the United States government without any dissent being recorded, only full approbation. The faith of George Washington and John Adams and Joel Barlow aside (I will aim, Lord willing to address Washington and Adams' religious views in the future on this blog), William Edgar well notes the following:

This treaty clause does not by itself prove that the Founding Fathers had adopted a clearly defined secularist philosophy of government. It does show, though, that the first leaders of our country were ready to exploit the Constitution's silence regarding Christianity to smooth the way to peace with a Muslim state.

In our day, for reasons of political expediency we have forged alliances with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and so many others such nations, and even helped to rebuild Iraq as a Muslim nation constitutionally speaking. We have even recently resumed normal diplomatic relations with Libya following the state-sponsored bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. There is nothing in our national charter to prohibit this, nothing to hold us back from aligning ourselves with those nations who have raged, conspired and taken counsel against the Lord and his anointed (Ps. 2.1-3). But ought we to bind ourselves to aid the ungodly, as Jehoshaphat joined in affinity with Ahab (2 Chron. 18.1)? How much greater by far would it be for America to take the path of wisdom and kiss the Son (Ps. 2.12)? "This is the great duty of the Christian religion; it is that which is required of all, even kings and judges, and it is our wisdom and interest to do it" (Matthew Henry). It is a duty not only of individual persons to confess Christ as King, but also magistrates in their official capacity, and nations, which are political and moral bodies of persons who are subject to the King, to confess with a kiss their allegiance to Him. A nation that is truly Christian is, or ought to be, at enmity with nations that openly fight against God and not to seek peace with such at the expense of kissing the Son. Huguenot minister Matthieu de Larroque (1619-1684), quoted by Rene Voeltzel, Vraie et Fausse Eglise en les theologiens protestants francais du dix-septieme siecle:

It is much more advantageous for the Christian to be sometimes at war with man in order to have peace with God than to always be at peace with man and thus be continually at war with God.