Daniel Dreisbach

An academic, author, and attorney with an interest in the intersection of religion, politics, and law in American life.

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

My book, “Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers,” is now available from Oxford University Press and other booksellers! https://t.co/kK7MFOUzeS

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

11 November 1779: Governor #ThomasJefferson of Virginia, architect of the “wall of separation between Church & State,” issued a religious proclamation appointing “a day of publick and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God.”

#WallOfSeparation #ThanksgivingProclamation

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

#VeteransDay

In 1917, at the request of the New York Bible Society, former President #TheodoreRoosevelt wrote a message, applying Micah 6:8 to a soldier's mission, that was inserted into pocket New Testaments given to World War I soldiers & sailors. | @TR_Center @TRooseveltAssoc

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

5 November 1775: “It seems Humane Nature is the same in all ages and Countrys. Ambition and avarice reign every where and where they predominate their will be bickerings after places of Honour and profit.” Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams.

#HumanNature #AbigailAdams

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

4 November 1775: “We may look up to Armies for our Defence, but Virtue is our best Security. It is not possible that any State sh[oul]d long remain free, where Virtue is not supremely honor[e]d.” Samuel Adams to James Warren (president of Massachusetts Provincial Congress).

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

2 November 1778: pray that GOD “would pour out his Spirit on all Orders of Men in our Land, bring us to a general Repentance and Reformation, and when His Judgments are abroad among us, make us learn Righteousness, and practise every Christian Virtue.…” Connecticut PROCLAMATION.

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

“Certain it is that the Holy Author of our Religion not only supported and maintained his Gospel in the world for several hundred years without the aid of Civil Power, but against all the powers of the Earth.” Petition Against Religious Assessments, Westmoreland, VA, 2 Nov. 1784.

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

1 November 1777: may it “please God...to prosper the means of religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth ‘in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost [Romans 14:17].’” #ContinentalCongress, Proclamation “for solemn thanksgiving and praise.”

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

1 November 1777: may it “please God...to prosper the means of religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth ‘in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost [Romans 14:17].’” #ContinentalCongress, Proclamation “for solemn thanksgiving and praise.”

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

31 October 1785: #JamesMadison introduced in the Virginia legislature bills from Virginia’s revised code, framed by #ThomasJefferson, that authorized “Punishing Disturbers of Religious Worship and Sabbath Breakers” and “Appointing Days of Public Fasting and Thanksgiving.”

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

#ReformationDay

https://t.co/l8We5w0ylZ

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

30 Oct. 1787: “...of all Men you are best fitted to fill that Office [of the Presidency]. Your cool steady Temper is *indispensibly necessary* to give a firm and manly Tone to the new Government.” Gouverneur Morris to #GeorgeWashington, shortly after the Constitutional Convention

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

29 Oct. 1775: “#HumanNature with all its infirmities and depravation is still capable of great things. It is capable of attaining to degrees of wisdom and of goodness, which, we have reason to believe, appear respectable in the estimation of superior intelligences.” #JohnAdams

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

28 October 1701: “BECAUSE no People can be truly happy, though under the greatest Enjoyment of Civil Liberties, if abridged of the Freedom of their Consciences, as to their Religious Profession and Worship…” William Penn’s Charter of Privileges for the Province of Pennsylvania.

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

“For, in politics as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.” Publius (#AlexanderHamilton), #Federalist No. 1, “The Independent Journal” (New-York), October 27, 1787.

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

26 Oct. 1781: Congress recommended “a day of Thanksgiving and Prayer” and urged “the people…to offer up our most fervent supplications to...God..., that it may please Him to…cause the knowledge of God to cover the earth, as the waters cover the seas [cf. Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14].”

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

25 Oct. 1776: “That the Beauty of the LORD our GOD may be upon us, & that HE would establish the Work of our Hands [Ps. 90:17]: That HE would … fill the Universe with the Display of HIS glorious Perfections, in & through JESUS CHRIST our Lord & Saviour.” Connecticut PROCLAMATION

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

25 October 1639: “thatt the worde of God shall be the onely rule to be attended vnto in ordering the affayres of gouernment in this plantatio[n].” New Haven General Court, first organization of civil government in the colony.

Hoadly, ed., Records of the Colony of New Haven, 21.

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

25 Oct. 1776: “That the Beauty of the LORD our GOD may be upon us, & that HE would establish the Work of our Hands [Ps. 90:17]: That HE would … fill the Universe with the Display of HIS glorious Perfections, in & through JESUS CHRIST our Lord & Saviour.” Connecticut PROCLAMATION

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

24 October 1776: “Neither can it be made appear that the Gospel needs any such civil aid. We rather conceive that when our Blessed Saviour declares his kingdom is not of the world, he renounces all dependence upon State power....” Memorial of the Presbytery of Hanover, Virginia.

[Daniel Dreisbach @d3bach]

24 October 1776: “Certain it is that every argument for civil liberty gains additional strength when applied to liberty in the concerns of Religion....” Memorial of the Presbytery of Hanover, Virginia.

#ReligiousLiberty #CivilLiberty