The Jefferson Lies (22 page)

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In the more populated North, churches abounded and participation was convenient; citizens were therefore frequent and regular in their attendance. John Adams, like so many others in New England, described himself as a “church-going animal.”
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The pastors of New England had frequent contact with their parishioners throughout the week and held much influence in the community.

With sparser population southward, churches were fewer and more distant from each other. Participation often required deliberate effort. For George Washington to attend church each Sunday, as was his habit, was a full day commitment. It was typically a two- to three-hour ride on horseback or carriage to his church ten miles from Mt. Vernon. A two-hour service was common, and the return ride home took another few hours, thus consuming the entire day. Ministers in the South were just as important as in the North, but they had fewer opportunities to influence their parishioners.

The presidential election of 1800 was America's first real partisan political contest, pitting Jefferson the Anti-Federalist against Adams the Federalist. New Englanders were fiercely loyal to their Federalist hero, John Adams; those southward strongly supported their Anti-Federalist champion, Thomas Jefferson. The campaign was vicious—probably the most venomous in American history with the Federalists taking a much nastier approach in their attacks against Jefferson than the Anti-Federalists did against Adams.

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For example, Jefferson was accused by Federalist critics not only of being anti-Christian but also of being a murderer, an atheist, a thief, and a cohort of foreign convicts. It was reported that he was secretly plotting the destruction and overthrow of the Constitution. He was accused of defrauding a widow and her children. The nation was alerted that he planned to abolish the navy and starve the farmers, and citizens were warned that if Jefferson were elected, he would confiscate and burn every Bible in America.
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This latter charge was so widely disseminated that in New England Bibles were actually buried upon Jefferson's election so that he could not find and burn them.
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Since one of the quickest ways to vilify and ostracize a person in New England was to claim that he was antireligious or lacked morals, Federalist ministers regularly accused Jefferson of both. Some of the most vicious attacks against him actually came from such ministers who preached notable sermons about him—sermons often containing blatant lies, gross distortions, and vile misrepresentations.

But John Adams was not exempted from similarly ill-intentioned attacks; he also was maligned and misrepresented by his Anti-Federalist opponents. Years later he recounted the maltreatment he had suffered to his close friend and fellow signer of the Declaration, Benjamin Rush:

If I am to judge by the newspapers and pamphlets that have been printed in America for twenty years past, I should think that both parties believed me the meanest villain in the world.
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But however fierce the attacks on Adams, those on Jefferson were much more despicable. Regardless of what Jefferson said or did concerning religion, no matter how innocent or honest his actions or words might be, they were spun negatively and used against him by his enemies, especially by Federalist clergymen.

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The Reverend Cotton Mather Smith of Connecticut provides an excellent example. Smith had served as a military chaplain during the American Revolution and delivered over four thousand sermons and messages in his lengthy career.
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On one occasion he was visited by a friend of Jefferson, who subsequently reported:

I called on and dined with the Revered Cotton Mather Smith of Sharon. . . . I found him an engaged
federal
politician; he soon found that my political feelings were not in unison with his and asked whether my good wishes would really extend Mr. Jefferson to the Presidential Chair [in the election of 1800]. I answered in the affirmative—on which, accompanied with much other malicious invective [vicious attack] and in presence of five men and two women, he said that you, Sir, “had obtained your property by fraud and robbery, and that in one instance you had defrauded and robbed a widow and fatherless children of an estate to which you were executor.” . . . I told him with some warmth that I did not believe it. He said that “it was true” and that “it could be proved.” . . . I thought it my duty, Sir, to communicate the assertion.
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Upon learning of that accusation, Jefferson replied to his friend:

Every tittle of it is fable [i.e., a lie]. . . . I never was executor but in two instances. . . . In one of the cases only were there a widow and children: she was my sister. She retained and managed the estate in her own hands, and no part of it was ever in mine. . . . If Mr. Smith, therefore, thinks the precepts of the Gospel [are] intended for those who preach them as well as for others, he will doubtless someday feel the duties of repentance and of acknowledgment in such forms as to correct the wrong he has done.
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Despite Smith's blatant lie that Jefferson obtained his belongings by defrauding widows and orphans, the charge nevertheless roared across New England.

Similarly false charges were made by the Reverend William Linn of New York who pastored several churches, served as a military chaplain during the Revolution, became the first chaplain of the House of Representatives, and then a university president. Linn was also a staunch Federalist and close friend of Alexander Hamilton and thus a mortal political enemy of Jefferson.

Linn penned
Serious Considerations on the Election of a President
in which he warned that if Jefferson won the 1800 election, “[t]he effects would be to destroy religion, introduce immorality, and loosen all the bonds of society.”
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The Reverend Linn concluded his pamphlet by telling the country that “Jefferson's opponent,” John Adams, was “irreproachable.” He then bluntly warned Americans that “it would be more acceptable to God and beneficial to the interests of our country to throw away your votes” than to vote for Jefferson.
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The Reverend John Mason was another New York Federalist pastor who detested Jefferson. He, too, was a close friend of Alexander Hamilton and actually attended Hamilton at his death after he was shot down in the famous duel with Aaron Burr. Mason authored
The Voice of Warning to Christians on the Ensuing Election
to warn Americans that Jefferson was a “confirmed” and “a hardened infidel” and one “who writes against the truth of God's Word; who makes not even a profession of Christianity; who is without Sabbaths, without the sanctuary, without so much as a decent external respect for the faith and worship of Christians.”
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Of course, as has already been shown, Jefferson had done exactly the opposite of what Mason claimed in each of these charges, including having written the law in Virginia that punished violators of the Sabbath. Nevertheless, Mason then solemnly warned voters:

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If therefore an infidel [Jefferson] presides over our country, it will be your fault, Christians, and YOUR act—and YOU shall answer it! And for aiding and abetting such a design, I charge upon your consciences the SIN of striking hands in a covenant of friendship with the enemies of your Master's glory.
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The Reverend Nathanael Emmons of Massachusetts also raised a strident voice against Jefferson. Emmons had been an ardent patriot during the Revolution. He later established several missionary and theological societies and two hundred of his sermons were published and publicly distributed.

Emmons, a devoted Federalist, worked actively against Jefferson, but despite his best efforts, Jefferson was elected. In a famous sermon preached after Jefferson won, Emmons asserted that Jefferson was the American Jeroboam.

In the Bible, Jeroboam was the wicked leader who divided Israel following the death of Solomon. Taking ten tribes, Jeroboam became their king and led them away from God, ordaining pagan priests and pagan places of worship throughout the land, thus causing the ten tribes to eventually be conquered and destroyed.

In Emmons' two-hour sermon he compared the wise and Godly leader Solomon (whom he likened to John Adams) with the wicked and nefarious leader Jeroboam (whom he asserted was Thomas Jefferson). He then chastised voters for choosing Jefferson, telling them:

Solomon [John Adams] did a great deal to promote the temporal and eternal interests of his subjects; but Jeroboam [Jefferson] did as much to ruin his subjects both in time and eternity. . . . It is more than possible that our nation may find themselves in the hand of a Jeroboam who will drive them from following the Lord; and whenever they do, they will rue the day and detest the folly, delusion, and intrigue which raised him to the head of the United States.
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Years later, during the War of 1812, long after Jefferson had retired from his two terms as president, Emmons still couldn't let go of his hatred. In fact, he directly blamed Jefferson for the war. In an 1813 sermon he continued the odious tone of his sermon from more than a decade earlier, still chiding voters with a denunciation of their stupidity for having chosen the “wicked” Jefferson:

[W]hen [the nation] neglected their best men and chose the worst [Jefferson], their glory departed and their calamities began. Against the solemn warning voice of some of the best patriots in the Union, they committed the supreme power into the hands of Mr. Jefferson, who had publicly condemned the federal Constitution. This they did with their eyes wide open. . . . We deserved to be punished.
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Publicly condemned the Constitution? Jefferson? The War of 1812—a war that occurred years after Jefferson left office—was America's “punishment” for electing Jefferson? Such was the loathsome tone of sermons and publications of that era, and such was the caliber of lies issued against Jefferson by leading Federalist ministers. As Jefferson lamented:

[F]rom the [Federalist] clergy I expect no mercy. They crucified their Savior, Who preached that their kingdom was not of this world; and all who practice on that precept must expect the extreme of their wrath. The laws of the present day withhold their hands from blood, but lies and slander still remain to them.
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Early Jefferson historian Claude G. Bowers affirmed:

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[I]n New England States, where the greater part of the ministers were militant Federalists, he was hated with an unholy hate. More false witness had been borne by the ministers of New England and New York against Jefferson than had ever been borne against any other American publicist.
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Noted political historian Saul Padover agreed.

They accused Jefferson of everything. If the sermons of the clergy were to be believed, there was no crime in the calendar of which Jefferson was not guilty and no unspeakable evil which he had not committed.
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With these types of reprehensible charges coming from Federalist clergy, it should not be surprising that the comments Jefferson made about these specific Federalist ministers might indeed seem anti-clergy. But the modern errant conclusion that then imputes those comments against all clergy instead of just Federalist ones can be reached only through Minimalism (ignoring complex situations in order to present an exaggeratedly simplistic conclusion). Minimalists, Academic Collectivists, and Deconstructionists regularly ignore Jefferson's scores of letters praising other clergymen. They also universally dismiss the countless Anti-Federalist (Republican) ministers and clergy who supported Jefferson with a zeal and fervor equal to that of the hatred shown him by the Federalists.

Among the many ministers and clergy who vociferously supported Jefferson was the Reverend John Leland of Massachusetts. Before the American Revolution Leland moved to Virginia where he pastored Baptist churches and became a good friend of Jefferson, working closely with him to disestablish the Anglican Church in the state. In 1788 Leland was selected as a Virginia delegate to ratify the US Constitution. In 1792 he moved back to Massachusetts, and in 1800 became a significant leader in organizing the Evangelicals in New England to support Jefferson for president.
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Following Jefferson's successful election Leland preached a sermon in which he effused:

Heaven above looked down and awakened the American genius. . . . This exertion of the American genius has brought forth the
Man of the People
, the defender of the rights of man and the rights of conscience to fill the chair of state. . . . Pardon me, my hearers, if I am over-warm. I lived in Virginia fourteen years. The beneficent influence of my hero was too generally felt to leave me a stoic. . . . Let us then adore that God Who has been so favorable to our land and nation.
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Leland made a special trip from Massachusetts to the White House to bring his friend Jefferson a special gift: a giant cheese.

Leland proposed that his flock should celebrate [Jefferson's] victory by making for the new Chief Magistrate the biggest cheese the world had ever seen. Every man and woman who owned a cow was to give for this cheese all the milk yielded on a certain day—only no federal cow must contribute a drop. A huge cider-press was fitted up to make it in, and on the appointed day, the whole country turned out with pails and tubs of curd, the girls and women in their best gowns and ribbons, and the men in their Sunday coats and clean shirt-collars. The cheese was put to press with prayer, and hymn-singing, and great solemnity. When it was well dried, it weighed 1,600 pounds. It was placed on a sleigh, and Elder John Leland drove with it all the way to Washington, It was a journey of three weeks. All the country had heard of the big cheese, and came out to look at it as the Elder drove along.
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