Divine Intervention in the Ratification Process
On 28 May 1788, Washington wrote the Marquis de Lafayette that the prospects for ratification of the Constitution were “so much beyond any thing we had a right to imagine or expect eighteen months ago, that it will demonstrate as visibly the finger of Providence, as any possible event in the course of human affairs.” As it became increasingly likely the Constitution would be ratified despite the long odds it had initially faced, many Federalists, including Washington, James Madison, and Benjamin Rush sensed the hand of God guiding the process.
Others who opposed the Constitution were not so certain. Philadelphiensis (possibly Benjamin Workmen) exhorted Americans to oppose the Constitution lest “The independence of America, which God himself vouched safe through his infinite mercy to confer upon us, must end in a curse.” A piece printed in Boston under the pseudonym “Samuel”-a reference to the Old Testament prophet-argued “We may justly expect that God will reject us” if the Constitution was ratified. In the debate over the Constitution, neither side had a monopoly on religious invocations.
Documents
- Cæsar II, New York Daily Advertiser, 17 October 1787
- Philadelphiensis I, Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, 7 November 1787
- Benjamin Rush Speech: Pennsylvania Convention, 12 December 1787
- Samuel, Boston Independent Chronicle, 10 January 1788
- Publius: The Federalist 37, New York Daily Advertiser, 11 January 1788
- An American, Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal, 23 April 1788
- George Washington to Marquis de Lafayette, Mount Vernon, Fairfax Co., Va., 28 May 1788