First Freedom: The Fight for Religious Liberty Page #6

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They'll live forever.

Mitchell:

For all the soaring grandeur

of the declaration

and the greatness

of the American character,

the new country

had a tragic flaw,

one that would

ruin millions of lives.

I see a paradox that is

so extraordinary

that it does not submit itself

to honest reasoning.

They were fighting

for their freedom.

At the same time,

they held large numbers

of people in slavery

with no intention,

with no intention

of setting them free,

and spending their

time rationalizing

why they should not be free.

Mitchell:
Thomas Jefferson was

among dozens of founders

who owned slaves, including

Washington and Franklin,

yet he was also the author

of the immortal words,

"all men are created equal,"

and he hated slavery.

Man as Jefferson:

The rights of human nature

deeply wounded by this

infamous practice of slavery.

Thomas Jefferson.

Mitchell:
But would

all 13 colonies agree to unite

if slavery were outlawed

in the new nation?

Jefferson didn't

think they would.

Without allowing

the "infamous practice,"

there would be no America.

In his own life, too,

Jefferson felt trapped.

His plantations needed

slave labor to compete,

and survive.

Man as Jefferson: As it is,

we have the wolf by the ear,

and we can neither hold him

nor safely let him go.

Justice is in one scale

and self-preservation

in the other.

Thomas Jefferson.

Church:
Part of him

that was trying to survive

was saying, "there's nothing

we can do about this,"

or "it's up to

another generation."

He turned his eye away

while recognizing,

"there is no way that the notion

all men are created equal

does not include

our black brothers and sisters."

He was divided

right down the middle.

You can call that

hypocrisy if you want.

This is a manifestation

of the fact

that the founders were human,

just like we're human today.

They fell short

of their ideals

just like we fall short

of our ideals today.

What rescues the founders

for me, though in this,

is that they put into place

the principles that

would over time

repudiate slavery.

Mitchell:
In the declaration

of independence,

the founders did not mention

slavery at all.

Meacham:
We do justice

to them not by deifying them

but by taking them

all and all and realizing

that if human beings

as flawed as Washington

and Jefferson and Adams

and Madison were

can do great things,

then potentially we can, too.

Mitchell:
By may of 1778,

Washington's army had survived

a killing winter

at valley forge,

but how could the tattered

remnants of an army win a war?

The powerful British forces

took control

of America's major cities,

sat back, and waited

for the rebel army

to disintegrate.

The colonials were

poorly paid, badly fed,

and sometimes overwhelmed by

the formidable army they faced.

What could hold these troops

from entirely different

colonies together?

For Washington,

the challenge lay

in establishing unity

in an army and a country

with disparate beliefs.

Church:
Those differences

were never clearer

than on Sunday.

The sabbath was a day

of rest in new england,

and it was day

of recreation in Virginia,

and so when Washington

would declare these days

of Thanksgiving,

which were to celebrate

a great victory,

he made sure everyone went

to church in the morning,

and then he invoked play

and recreation

as the agenda

for the afternoon.

So everyone was

100% half satisfied.

Mitchell:
Washington himself was

a kind of religious amalgam.

By his mid-30s he'd

served as a vestryman

in his local

episcopal church.

Church:
Even though

he was a vestryman,

he never joined the church,

never took communion,

was very, very mum

on Christian matters.

Mitchell:
Yet Washington

authorized the appointment

of army chaplains,

something not common

in European armies.

It would be a good thing,

he thought,

if his men were devout.

To the distinguished

character of patriot,

it should be

our highest glory

to add the more

distinguished character

of Christian.

Butler:
Washington encouraged

religion among his troops

during the revolutionary war.

He encouraged it

for purposes of troop morale.

He wasn't cynical in that.

He knew that many soldiers

were themselves religious.

Washington saw

a military usefulness in that.

I think he also saw

a moral usefulness in that.

The founders, all of them were

believers in God.

There's not

an atheist among them.

They were not emotionally

religious people, most of them,

but faith in that sense

was important to them,

but it was important

as an inculcator

of virtue, of morality.

Society needed

religion to survive.

Mitchell:
Yet Washington

was more comfortable

talking about Providence

ratherhan God.

His letters are full

of statements

about the hand

of Providence intervening

and assertions that

the revolution

could not possibly

have succeeded

without God's intervention.

His work overflows

with references

about Providence,

but his exact nature

of his private religious beliefs

is hard to discern.

Mitchell:
In 1779,

Washington gave Benedict Arnold

command of the vital

west point stronghold

on the Hudson river north

of New York City.

Arnold was a traitor.

He devised a plot to turn

west point over to the British

and gave the papers

detailing his plan

to a spy named John Andre.

Andre disguised himself

in an American uniform

and rushed with the plans

toward British headquarters

in New York.

The next morning,

a wandering group

of American soldiers,

absent without leave

from the continental army,

stopped Andre

for no reason at all.

They searched him

and discovered the papers,

ending Benedict Arnold's

treasonous plot.

Man as Washington:

In no instance

since the commencement

of the war,

has the interposition

of Providence appeared

more remarkably conspicuous than

in the rescue of the post

and Garrison of west point from

Arnold's villainous perfidy.

Your humble servant,

George Washington.

Mitchell:
The word

"Providence"was used often

by many of the founders.

It meant the benign

intervention of God,

but what God?

Brinkley:
There's become

a tradition of great Americans

of invoking God,

but it's God not

of a particular sect.

It's a universal God,

an American creator.

Providence meant that he was

moving forward the good causes.

So when the revolution occurs,

it's very important to them

to know that God is

on their side

because he was

active in history.

Washington thought

God was looking after

the Republic.

He thought he was looking

after him personally

because he survived

the revolutionary war.

So I think faith

in that sense was

important to them.

Mitchell:
In 1630,

John winthrop had hoped

that Boston would be

the city on the hill,

the perfect model

for the world.

Almost 150 years later,

many of the founders hoped

and believed that America

would be the nation on the hill,

a model for the world.

In 1776, we were fighting

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