When the first Congress met at Federal Hall in New York City in 1789, there were three days in September that saw a telling sequence of events.
On Thursday, Sept. 24, the House of Representatives finalized the language for what the states would later ratify as the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The first part of this amendment declared: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”
The very next day, Elias Boudinot of New Jersey — who had voted for the First Amendment — offered a resolution in the House of Representatives calling on Americans to set aside a day to give thanks to our Creator.
“Elias Boudinot was a conservative at heart,” Andrew Farmer wrote in “Ordinary Greatness: A Life of Elias Boudinot.”
Boudinot was a lawyer who never went to college, but who served for 49 years on the Board of Trustees of the College of New Jersey — now known as Princeton.
“He wanted his life direction and choices to be consistent with the teachings of the Bible, which he habitually studied,” wrote Farmer. “He sought to infuse the temporal and practical demands of each sphere of his life with his sense of eternal priorities.”
“He was an early and ardent advocate for the abolition of the slave trade,” Farmer wrote.
On Sept. 25, 1789, when Boudinot offered his resolution to set aside a day for Americans to give thanks to God for the blessings He had bestowed on this country, the only stated opposition came from two South Carolina slave owners who had also opposed ratification of the Constitution. They were Aedanus Burke and Thomas Tudor Tucker.
The official House record notes that the first thing it did that day was pass an appropriations bill. Then Boudinot rose to speak.
“Mr. Boudinot said he could not think of letting the session pass over without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining, with one voice, in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings he had poured down upon them,” says the record. “With this view, therefore, he would move the following resolution.”
It stated: “Resolved, That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.”
This is when the two slave-owning, anti-Constitution members of Congress rose in opposition.
“Mr. Burke did not like this mimicking of European customs, where they made a mere mockery of thanksgivings,” the record reports.
“Mr. Tucker thought the House had no business to interfere in a matter which did not concern them,” it said. “Why should the President direct the people to do what, perhaps, they have no mind to do? They may not be inclined to return thanks for a Constitution until they have experienced that it promotes their safety and happiness. We do not yet know but they may have reason to be dissatisfied with the effects it has already produced; but whether this be so or not, it is a business with which Congress have nothing to do; it is a religious matter, and, as such, is proscribed to us.”
The House agreed with Boudinot — not Burke and Tucker.
“The question was now put on the resolution, and it was carried in the affirmative,” the record states.
The very next day — a Saturday — the Senate concurred in this action taken by the House. The following Monday, the House received this notice: “A message from the Senate informed the House that they had agreed to the resolution desiring the President of the United States to recommend a day of general thanksgiving.”
President George Washington did exactly that.
In a proclamation issued on Oct. 3, 1789, he declared: “Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor … Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be — That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks.”
Washington also called on Americans to “unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to … render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed.”
That is surely the way Elias Boudinot would have wanted it.
Terence P. Jeffrey is the investigative editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation. To find out more about Terence P. Jeffrey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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