There are identified by Novak, in actuality five Protestant civil religions, a 'high church' tradition of
mainline churches (though his identification of them with a political equivalent of liberal Republicanism
is somewhat contentious), a 'populist tradition of the lower classes,' or 'low church style' (with equally
questionable political expression, a "reformist and yet practical" middle ground of 'denominational,
commerce-instructed moralism of the middle-class heartland churches, all in a fundamentalist mode, but
joined by currents of what he calls cyclical and dominant but not permanent Protestant leadership for
reform which on occasion breaks outside the pack, and the black Protestant experience.(23)

     A variation on these categories has been offered by Robert Alley in SO HELP ME GOD which
describes a civil religion that is "far more fluid a reality." For him:

	"The national mood, the international balance of power, and the strengths 
	of presidential personalities tend to construct a new civil religion in every
	generation ... [one] ... affected in character and formed by the quality of 
	religion exemplified by the President."

     There have been exemplified by Presidents a triad of such traditions in our national history. A goal-
oriented, more reasoned symbol field, more deist than Christian, impatient with denominational
delimitations represented by both Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Andrew Jackson which is somewhat
Congregationalist-Unitarian, he refers to as Type A. Calvinist mainstream traditions manifest in Wilson,
Nixon, Truman, and Eisenhower, but also Grant, Cleveland, McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Harding,
Coolidge, Hoover, and LBJ, seem legalistic and tied to unified symbols of religion and politics and strive
for national righteousness, obedience to God, and national purpose much in the manner of  ancient Israel
are reflected in Type B which has displaced the initial category. Washington, Pierce, Arthur, FDR, and
JFK are Type C, a via-media scheme reflecting Anglican and Catholic motifs

     Either classification, whatever its value, has some dilemnas to resolve, but perhaps most of all is overly
focused on the Presidency. That is not to deny a centrality of the office in the culture or the faith, nor any
priestly or deified role for the executive. But it might be suggested that just as society does, the civil
religion of America, while it encompasses the formally politically, transcends it in great measure, too,
reaching broadly across and deeply into the society. There are much more useful and meaningful methods
for classifying our President and other leaders, and while there may arguably be any number of currents
within our civil religious  tradition, there is also  a much more definitively focused spirit that possesses
and animates it. But as Novak asserts, civil religion in American is a concrete reality, and there exists  a 
broad spectrum of literature supportive of the kind of  fleshing in of the anatomy of this faith on the
minimal units of religious behavior classification scheme outlined here.

XII. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FAITH


     Over the years, a great deal of importance has been placed on the reality that an English heritage was
predominant in colonial America in the 18th century. My quarrel with such expressions is that they are
basically little more than tautologies. Perhaps more can be learned from queries so structured than from
one delving into that great historical mystery as to whom it is that is buried in Grant's Tomb, but the basic
point is the same. Of course it was predominant, but that heritage was no monolith, nor did it spring full-
blown from the brow of Britain, nor was it simply received wisdom which 'Americans' merely processed
without reflection or their without viewing it through their own unique and special lenses. Nor were the
North American colonies so monolithic in their receipt of this wisdom.

     These incipient Americans were well-versed in that culture and its spirit, but nonetheless, if we are to
come to a better understanding of that rising spirit  here, it is so inadequate as to be genuinely
misrepresentative. There was a considerable degree of rejection of the 'Old World' and the experience of
these transplants was without much of the burden in fact of that old world even if it had to be there in the
mind. Certainly, they were largely dependent, too, on English 'things,' both material and in writings and
philosophy, but not only were they not completely enamored of the English heritage, if only because they
had left it behind and because certain aspects of it proved quite problematic to them, but they were
increasingly seeking to remedy some of its ills as they perceived them, though obviously it was that same
spirit which would be a major part of the basis for attempting to improve it.

     Religion was one of the central issues in this matter, informed as their emergent spirit would be by
Puritan views of the English church, anti-Papacy in no small measure due to its ties to such as Spain
though clearly not limited to that factor, and their keen awareness of the impact of the Thirty Years War
particularly through central Europe. But even the Puritanical strain was not as alienated  to the English
heritage as some might suppose. Samuel Morrison, for example, points out that Nathaniel Morton and
Edward Winslow contended that the Pilgrim sojourn from Holland to Plymouth was at least in part
militated by their anxiety over the loss there of their culture and language (1). And there were New
England experiences -- both the writers and the Pilgrims -- a fact that is only further elaborated on in
consideration that if in New England there was less attachment to the English heritage, in Virginia, there
was much more, including in religious matters.

     The New English experience was not only by religious dissenters, but that area had perhaps more by
way of its own literature, its own colleges, greater flexibility in governance, and the like, although their
religious-grounded repugnance to such things as plays may have served to lessen the division to the extent
that such drama often, as it clearly did with Shakespeare, worked to question certain characteristics of that
inherited culture. In spite of what might be taken as a greater proclivity for things English and less
latitude  in the area of government in Virginia and Maryland, at least superficially, it is also the case that
people who lived there seem to have developed considerable fascination with such practices and pastimes
as horse racing and cock fighting somewhat beyond what one might expect to have found in Britain even.
And when the Great Awakening swept North America, whatever their proclivities, this area was
immensely taken by the storm. Michel Sobel has evidenced, further, a great impact on the culture and
spirit of this area made by the very large numbers of African slaves who lived there (TRABELIN' ON and
THE WORLD THEY MADE TOGETHER). One can infer some similar effects in South Carolina in the
research of Peter Wood (BLACK MAJORITY) and in North Carolina  there is evidence of real animosity
which is somewhat class-based in the Regulation, which if it perhaps functioned to undercut loyalties by
large numbers of western farmers to English ways at least as represented by the eastern aristocracy and
thus to have fueled democratic impulses, its proximity to the Revolution (as opposed to somewhat similar
tension around Bacon in Virginia a century earlier) may have had counter-revolutionary  impact as the
'eastern establishment' there came to support and rally the colonial cause.
   


                                                                                                                                                                         
     At the same time, however, a series of events and developments in England worked to fuel the spirit
for self-governance throughout colonial America. The Magna Carta, evolution of common law and
Parliament, together with the events of the Commonwealth and Glorious Revolution, and augmented by
the adoption of the Petition of Right, Toleration Act, Act of Settlement, and even earlier, the English Bill
of Rights and the Habeas Corpus Act, all probably had even greater impact in America than in Britain, if
that is possible. The same might be argued in regard to Greek and Roman classics, and the political
philosophy, with is often almost literary bend, being expressed in England. At least the more learned
colonists, who also formed the core of revolutionary leadership, were well-read in these areas, and, if only
because of their relative comparable distance from the British Isles, may have put more stock in them than
was the case in the old country.

     It is worth noting some of the detail of the development in English constitutional evolution because of
their similarities to  much that came out of the colonies as the revolutionary crisis emerged. A few
examples should suffice for this consideration. By the late 18th century, the Commons had evolved well
along the way to its eventual hegemony in the bicameral Parliament and the function of that
representative body in the approval of taxes had become well established. In fact, this course had been sell
trod for five centuries already. If there were clear limitations to representation of those without estate or
standing, the expansion of franchise was, on both sides of the Atlantic, well set upon the path toward
recission of such restriction that would be followed through the ensuing period. Parliament by this time
had been well established to limit the powers of the king even if there were questions as to the limitations
of its own power. What had been established a century before 1776 was a clear division of powers, in fact.
Even before the Commonwealth, Charles, still in possession of his head, had been forced to consent to the
Petition of Right, to taxation only with Parliamentary consent and the quartering of troops, due process,
inclusion of trial by jury and forbidding of bills of attainder, and the subjection of the King and his
magistrates to the law. And by the restoration of Charles II, even as the King-in-Parliament ruled once
more, that power had been curtailed, arbitrary courts such as the Star Chamber and High Commission, as
well as church courts were officially things of the past, and the common law had emerged triumphant.
Further, over the following two decades, Habeas Corpus had become much more secured, the Bill of
Rights had been adopted, and Parliament had established itself as able to determine who the monarch
would be. Before the removal of James II, in fact, a modicum of religious tolerance had even been effected
with his Declaration of Indulgences. The Toleration Act of 1689 expanded that further. Among the
grievances which the Bill of Rights sought to delimit the monarchy's power over were obvious presages of 
the American Declaration and Bill of Rights and  Constitution, including free speech and petition,
restriction on excessive bail and fines and "cruel and unusual punishment," a right to bear arms, limiting
the quartering of troops as well as standing armies, Parliamentary control over levies, and regular
Parliaments. And although it is true that executive power of government rested on the monarch and both
Houses of Parliament had to approve acts into the 20th century (by which time, Parliamentary ministers
had wrestled most executive power into their own hands), there really can be no question as to the
substance and direction of the spirit militating these events, or its reflection in the events in the colonies a
century after the English Revolution.


     Unquestionably, the archetypal American of the period was Benjamin Franklin, and while no
accounting of him could do justice to the role he played, simply because it might be said that if one would
know this America of the era, he quite obviously would be the one figure to look to, the level to which he
may have been an embodiment of the American spirit has to be examined. It has even been suggested that
common reference to him as the 'Divine Spark'(with all the connotations that carries for other
commentary here) prompted Beethoven's (and of course Schiller's)   utilization of the 'Gotterfunken' in his
Ninth Chorale Symphony, and that, perhaps conversely, the disenchantment toward her husband's
reverence for him prompted Mary Shelley's framing of the Jurassic Park motif in her FRANKENSTEIN (a
scientist, foolishly fiddling around with things beyond human power to understand or cope with uses
lightning in a science that turns on him -- even the name is similar).

     Franklin's AUTOBIOGRAPHY, whatever else it is, constitutes what may be the most definitive
exposition in behalf of entrepreneurial  capitalism, but his life is one of commitment to and necessity of
learning, science (in the spirit of Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Boyle, and Kepler and Leonardo),
philosophy (in the spirit perhaps of Descartes but certainly of Liebniz), community (as represented by his
efforts at launching five fire fighting brigades, libraries, for example), politics (as his Junta would
demonstrate), and faith in man(even, if not especially, of the 'common' variety). His contacts throughout
Europe are crucial to understand. he not only counted among his 'associates' the like of Mozart and
Priestley, but engaged himself in active organization of support for the American Revolutionary effort
which reached to the King  and Lafayette in France, von Stueben and de Kalb in Germany, Kosciusko and
Pilaski in Poland, and the Czar of Russia.  

     Certainly, he was not in this effort alone, although at various times he may have felt it so. And if his
character lead to a popularity which made a fad of his beaver hat in Europe, it also contributed greatly to
the formation of both the League of Armed Neutrality which inhibited somewhat British efforts in the war
but also to active support for and participation in the war. He might be said to have been a renaissance
man even more than an Enlightenment Mind, not unlike Leonardo perhaps. But, it is the spirit, not just
the  'man' which is critical to the point to be made immediately here, for, to understand people, what
influenced them and formed them must be understood, and much that characterizes this accounting of
Franklin is reflected therein.

     If it can be said, as it assuredly can be, that Shakespeare had such influence on the Americans, as fresh
in their minds as his more contemporary writing would have been, and similarly, the works of Jonathan
Swift, the spirit of the Tudor period and renaissance (as with Thomas Gresham and his impact on
business and merchant and artisan, or with Hakluyk and Raliegh and their joint stock company presaging
of the corporation), there was a sort of pan-European influence, as well. The vote on prospective use of
German as this nation's official language is certainly indicative of some German influence. This was a
Germany locked in the throes of the struggle between English and Continental science, which to a great
extent echoes  through the pages of Liebniz, and one that was creating Schiller, Beethoven, and Goethe,
as well as the Humboldts. The French connection, seen in military matters most clearly, would have had
to have been itself under the influence of Richilieu and Colbert, if to a less important degree, of Rousseau,
Voltaire, and Descartes. Despite some antipathy existent between Spanish regimes and the American
setting, there were other elements of its character with strong ties to the American colonial mind such as
that of Cervantes, a link which also illustrates a seed of the Islamic Timurid, and the entire chain of
events reflected by the efforts of Peter and Catherine in Russia and Frederick Wilhelm  and Frederick
slightly further to the west with their emphasis of science, learning, and economic development, are
important. Of course, the spirit in England was producing not only Adam Smith, but perhaps as
importantly, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Keats and Shelley, and Thomas Paine. And this was an England in
which the industrial revolution was beginning to take off. Hegel's Geist may, indeed, be seen to have been
more universal as applied to the American situation and spirit than might otherwise have been supposed.
Yet, this should neither be supposed to be indicative of any poverty of English influence in the colonies. If
British constitutional reforms seemed to halt fro over a century after 1689, they obviously yet had
considerable impact on America, but as political philosophy continued to develop during that time, if its
impact on the colonial mind was less, it was only by degrees, as brief elaboration on but a few of the
leading minds will suggest.

     The tradition of British political thought might be taken in two sets with reference to how it could
inform the colonial psyche. An early group including Hooker, Hobbes, Milton, Locke, and Tranchard and
Gordon can be examined as a part of the English Revolution, while such as Blackstone and Adam Smith
may be seen as more contemporaneous to that in America.

     Hooker and Hobbes are actually a subset of the earlier group, although for different reasons, the former
having passed with the turn of the century and the later being of a somewhat divergent spirit. Russell Kirk
has fixed the impact of Hooker on later America:

	"Hooker's arguments, like his prose style ... would be familiar -- if only in
	paraphrase sometimes -- to nearly all educated men in eighteenth century
	America. ... [The idea of ] Hooker's that passed into American social 
	assumptions are his concepts of law, of continuity, of constitutional
	liberty, and of tolerance." (2)                             

     Probably most important was his emphasis on natural law. Coming from God, it permeated the
universe, gave it order, and moved it in directions as the will of the Almighty. His ends would be the
source from which all law sprang. If his vision was an extension of Aquinas into Anglican thought, and if
the ability of man through his reason to discern such law was perhaps flawed by man's will and this
necessitated government over man since as a 'fallen' species he must have powers over him to control,
discipline, and restrain him, Hooker is clear that the authority of this governance comes from the consent
of the ruled. (3) He made room for obtaining this authority by conquest or coalescence, but articulated
special provision for contractual consent through social compact. Representative government in Hooker
might be more appropriate where a people with unique traditions might prefer that (as the colonial
experience would have been seen), but he seems to bear preference for constitutional monarchy as the best
form. Nevertheless, his thought may be seen to encompass what might appear to be divergencies between,
for example, Adams and Franklin, in terms of their relative levels of faith in man, a difference of opinion,
as is discussed elsewhere here, somewhat reconciled in Hamilton and Madison and their crafting of the
constitutional order on just such basis around the issue of will.
     Where Hobbes obviously has a different vision, one which perhaps few of the Framers would have been
comfortable with the expression of -- his cynicism of human nature and not only need for external control
but virtual absolute authority for the monarchy -- his system is built upon concepts of natural law and
contract. The purpose, after all, of the leviathan is to secure liberties for man who without it could not
enjoy them at all, though it was always at the discretion of the ruler, which could on Hobbes justify even
tyranny.  The matter, of considerable debate, as to any historical existence of any version of a state of
nature or compact is really an irrelevancy. It is the potential condition which is the crux of the issue, and
the discussion in reality revolves around the nature of man and governance of man. This is the case as
much for these earlier philosophies, as it is for later ones, even up to the present, from Hobbes and Hooker
to Rawls and Nozick, of course. It is, as well, applicable to the second tier of this set of English
philosophers, whose work is a reflection of the experiences of the Commonwealth period.
     Whether the Framers and their comrades in battle or forging the Republic were consciously seeking to
regain the paradise of Milton's pen, that thought probably imparts the influence he had on the process. We
may never know how many of those delegates in Philadelphia had read and been moved by Milton's
'Divine Comedy,' but if we want to understand the spirit that was moving them, it could not be
overlooked, nor probably underplayed. If a vision of men dressed as Indians storming the ships in Boston
Harbor with copies of Milton raised above their heads ensues, one might be tempted to conjure up images
of Chinese marching during the Cultural Revolution waving Mao's LITTLE RED BOOK, but there would
be at least one critical difference. The colonists had read  Milton.* Wilson Clough has made this point:
	"Milton's works were early known in America and exercised their influence
	upon New England election sermons and political papers. 'They are indeed,'
	wrote Jonathan Mayhew in a letter, 'the principles which, God be thanked,
	generally prevail in New England...'"(4)
Any favor he may have shown for mixed government of the English variety had dissipated by the time
Charles lost his head and he supported the idea of government by Commons-type assemblies with an
executive  council, and fearing both democracy and monarchy, he increasingly leaned toward republican
government, which entailed a necessarily high standard of conduct by rulers and ruled:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Even though it can hardly be extrapolated as evidence of widespread such phenomena, a relevant quote
from Tocqueville lends credence in this direction. He found the spirit reaching from the city and court
house to the isolated cabin of the frontier, explaining how he found the possessions of a pioneer family
to include:

	"... a map of the United States ... [and] a few books: a Bible, the first six cantos
	of Milton, and two plays of Shakespeare..." (appendix to Democracy In America)


	"To make the people fittest to choose, and the chosen fittest to govern, will be
	to amend our corrupt and faulty education, to teach the people faith not without
	virtues, temperance, modesty, sobriety, parsimony, justice ... to place everyone his 
	place, everyone his private welfare and happiness in the public peace, liberty, and
	safety."(5)
     There is little doubt as to Milton's view of man's nature. Having fallen, and failed, as expressed in
PARADISE LOST, he had the capacity, in reason and will, to regain it, and the poet's reverence for books
and free speech combined with his vision of free will approximates the notion of a natural aristocracy  of
learning and earned merit which would inform the Constitutional regime of Hamilton and Madison.
AREOPAGITICA actually demonstrates a good deal more of his philosophy than his favor for freedom of
press and limited government in its attitude that government had little basis for being paternalistic, and
that man's capacity for reason could provide the foundation for republican virtue which, reinforced by
structure, form, and law, could regain the lost republic or paradise. Probably few other places would one
find any anchoring of rights to any more secure foundation than in Milton, nor would it be surprising that
one so committed to especially the right of expression would want them firmly extended into the realm of
religion. He was very definitive that such liberty had to be reasoned from the standpoint of public good,
not just personal advantage, as Franklin would contend himself later, although that may not be so alien to
the individual interest expressed by Adam Smith as it may seem on the surface. And during what has been
referred to as his 'middle period,' he expressed a political philosophy that places him as a pamphleteer
perhaps unparalleled by any save Thomas Paine. 
     But both Milton and Algernon Sidney carried the reasoning further than articulation of a natural law
doctrine of government. Limited government set to secure man's natural rights was not the end in itself.
This would reach toward the possibility of human fulfillment -- it would free the energy of people for
development; indeed, that man might through realization of the filoque thereby regain the lost paradise.
And if Hooker reconciled Aquinas to Anglican Protestantism, it can be said that Milton's paradise
similarly transcribed Augustine's city into the English spirit.

     In spite of the perhaps more obvious or at least well-known connection that may be drawn between
John Locke and the Framing, and the value of his contribution, it in many respects may actually represent
a step backwards from Milton. That is not merely to disparage Locke or to divorce Milton from the
Founding. In fact, the argument must run that Milton is even more commensurable with the Revolution
and Framing. Still, there can be no question as to the substantive bond linking Locke to the events in
America three-quarters of a century after his death. The most apparent relevance can be seen in the
utilization of variations on his phraseology which were inscribed into the Declaration of Independence.

     Any attempt to grapple with any system so complex as these is going to be fraught with peril. This is
particularly the case with Locke given the perceptions which prevail, but nonetheless, there is some
commentary in respect to him that can be properly and profitably made. In many ways, John Locke was a
continuation of the general themes outlined above in Hooker and Milton: natural law, limited government,
religious tolerance, popular government, the state of nature, social contract, and self-defense. Respecting
these, much might be entered, but considerable comment on these will be entered more appropriately
later. Of more immediate concern of relevance here, the effort will be to consider two viewpoints in his
work from a critical standpoint.

     Locke's state of nature, scarcely the problematic state as that of Hobbes, and in good part so due to his
somewhat higher, if still limited, vision of the nature of man, was abandoned for political society on
primarily one rationale:

	"The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, 
	and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their 
	property; to which in a state of nature there are many things wanting."
	(6)   



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