Why Faith Matters: Faith Mattered to the Founding Fathers
Faith: Examples of Faith of the Founding Fathers:
Recall from our lesson on the First Thanksgiving that the earliest settlers came to the New World in search of religious freedom and economic opportunity. Throughout the 17th century, more and more people of faith followed, such as Catholics, Quakers, and Jews, and established their own settlements centered around their religious identities. These early colonies were not always accepting of people who had different faiths, and at times, they treated each other badly.
“All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
This statement serves as the cornerstone of our individual liberties because it recognizes that our Creator is the ultimate authority over any government of human beings and that we receive our rights from our Creator — not our government.
February 1775
As Founder Alexander Hamilton wrote in February 1775, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence was ratified, ‘The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.’
These words from one of our Founders show that religious freedom was not some vague notion meant to simply ensure people had the ability to attend the church of their choice — or to choose not to attend religious services. The idea that the government lacked the authority to infringe on fundamental rights was unique and vital to America’s founding.
The Founders believed this so thoroughly that according to Founder Samuel Adams, people didn’t even have the ability to surrender their own rights… In fact, Jefferson and the other Founders believed religion was the principal source of morality — and morality was essential for a free society.
The Founders themselves weren’t just influenced by religion — they themselves were religious. As Michael Novak stated in his article Faith of Our Fathers, published by the American Enterprise Institute, “Among the 89 signers of the Declaration and/or the Constitution, nearly a dozen had studied theology, were ordained ministers, were preachers though not ordained, were chaplains to a militia unit, or were officers of national Bible societies and the like.”