Historian Gordon Wood versus GW oath history.

C-Span broadcast a three hour interview with United States historian Gordon Wood, Professor Emeritus at Brown University, on its Sept. 5 broadcast of "In-Depth". About one hour and twenty minutes into the interview, the interviewer Peter Slen forwarded a question from Ray Soller to Gordon Wood asking why Gordon Wood thinks it proper to conclude that George Washington appended the words "so help me God" during the first oath recitation. Here is Professor Wood's response:

It's from what I said before - the fact that he kissed the Bible and that the Judiciary Act which was passed that same year did prescribe for the oath for judges that they say "so help me God." So you can deduce from that that maybe he said it. That's all we have. It seems to me I'm happy to just leave it at that. But others, lots of people want it settled for reasons that have to do with contemporary political life.

Professor Wood also said "What I think is fascinating is the interest in this, because the stakes seem high for people. If you can show that he said or did not say that phrase, then certain things follow from that. I'm not sure we want our politics to hinge on that one fact."

Omitted by the interviewer, and not acknowledged by Gordon Wood, was Ray Soller's written explanation for why he is taking an interest in this question:

It is unfortunate that the Senate Historical Office under the direct supervision of the Senate Rules Committee, does not recognize what is actually known about GW's swearing-in ceremony when it comes to its Facts and Firsts website. Here, the website states in the entry for GW's inauguration on April 30, 1789,"First Inauguration; precedents set include the phrase, "So help me God," and kissing the Bible after taking the oath." No correction has been made even though staff members at the Senate Historical Office are currently aware of the inaccurate nature of their assertion, and this is a big reason why I care so much about this question.

So here is the question for Professor Wood: Why are you directing your criticism that "But others, lots of people want it settled for reasons that have to do with contemporary political life." at "others" and "lots of people" instead of at the Senate Historical Office? After all, Ray Soller is just one out of hundred's of million's of ordinary citizens, and he acknowledged "everyone is guessing" in his letter to C-SPAN and Gordon Wood, while the Senate Historical Office is a trusted, official government source for inaugural history that is incorrectly misrepresenting this dubious guess as a historical fact.

Here is why I think Gordon Wood's guess is highly dubious. Gordon Wood cites the fact that GW kissed the bible. An anonymously written letter published in the in the May 13, 1789 issue of The Gazette of the United States, using religious language to describe the event such as "a solemn appeal to Heaven" and "I was under an awful and religious persuasion that the Gracious Ruler of the Universe was looking down at that moment with peculiar complacency" also said "he bowed down and kissed the sacred volume". The anonymity of the letter and the religious mindset of the writer suggest that this isn't a particularly unbiased description of what actually happened. But there is no disputing that George Washington kissed the bible because Samuel Otis said he did.

More significant is that the available evidence suggests that George Washington did not bring the bible to the ceremony, nor did he request the bible for the ceremony, nor did he kiss the bible on his own initiative. The notes in the Journal of the Secretary of the Senate, handwritten by Samuel Otis, who held the bible during the inauguration, reported that GW had placed his hand on the bible and kissed the bible, which Otis had lifted towards Washington's face, when the oath was concluded. In other words, the bible kissing was prompted by Samuel Otis. Nothing related to the presence or use of the bible was initiated by George Washington.

Also of direct relevance is that we have no evidence that a bible was present, or that "so help me god" was appended, at George Washington's second inauguration. In fact, we have no evidence that "So help me God" was appended to any presidential oath until at least after the Civil War started and even then, the evidence for that phrase being uttered is contradictory, very sparse, and of dubious quality, disregarding Jefferson Davis because he was the Confederate president, until we get to the 1881 inauguration of Chester Arthur. If George Washington really did append that phrase at his first inauguration, why didn't he do so at his second inauguration, and why don't we have evidence that anyone else appended that phrase at their inauguration for another 100 hundred years?

Most significant of all, we do have one eyewitness account that quotes the oath recitation, and that account has Chancellor Livingston saying "Long live Washington" when the oath was finished. So if we really are motivated by a desire to follow the tradition set by George Washington, as some people claim, then the Chief Justice should complete our presidential oath recitations with "Long live [name]" and not "so help me God".

Finally, why does the Judicial Act take on so much importance as evidence that GW appended "so help me God"? The Judicial Act was passed more than four months after the inauguration, it specified that the "so help me God" phrase was optional, and George Washington was not inaugurated as a judge. In contrast, the act to regulate the time and manner of administering certain oaths applied to Congress and the executive branch, was debated before, and passed by Congress three weeks after, the inauguration, and made no mention of god. Furthermore, it is the constitution, which George Washington had just recently assisted in drafting, not any congressional bill, that specifies the presidential oath of office, and again no mention of God.

Gordon Wood appears to be intelligent, personable, sensible, thoughtful, honest, and knowledgeable. But he should direct his valid criticism that what GW said after his oath isn't "settled" at the Senate Historical Office, not at Ray Soller or "others" and "lots of people" generally. It is the web site of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, which is administered by the Senate Rules Committee, that is claiming that it is settled that George Washington appended shmG to his oath of office, so if lots of people believe its settled then that is why. Gordon Woods knows this, so it is disingenuous for him to attribute this problem to "others" and "lots of people". And his argument that George Washington appended "so help me God" to his first inaugural oath isn't persuasive, its a grasping at straws argument.

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How to identify a history book not written for accuracy.

Why is it that professors with Phd's are still publishing academic books asserting as a historical fact that George Washington and "all of his successors" appended the phrase "so help me God" to their oath of office? In a brief recent correspondance with one such history book author I heard several of the common defenses. Here are the defenses and my reaction to them.

One response is that there are a number of eyewitness accounts. This is simply incorrect. There is insufficient reason to assume that Washington Irving's claim that GW appended that phrase was based on his hearing that phrase being appended as a six year old. The others who first made this claim in the mid to late 1850's, 65 years after the event, were either not born, illiterate infants, and/or not in the vicinity of the inaugural at that time, and were as a group in social contact with each other. We have one eyewitness account from the French minister that quotes the oath. I explain this in more detail below.

Another, more common response is that the presidents used religious themes and that this lends credence to accounts that they finished with SHMG. This is OK as an argument in defense of the opinion that all of the presidents appended SHMG, although as a defense of a such a sweeping opinion it is weak, especially since we have a audio recording proving that least one president did not append SHMG and eyewitness accounts of some presidents not appending SHMG. But putting the contrary evidence aside, that still does not even come close to justifying claiming that GW, let alone all presidents, appended SHMG as a historical fact. The bottom line is that there is no evidence that our presidents appended that phrase to the presidential oath of office prior to Confederate president Jefferson Davis doing so. It is my opinion, for example, that Jefferson Davis wanted to confer upon the Confederacy a sense of moral superiority by appending that phrase as a contrast with the United States presidential inaugurals which up to that time apparently did not include that phrase. I think the evidence supports my opinion much better than it supports the contrary opinion that all presidents appended SHMG. But professors with Doctorates of Philosophy who falsely publish that it is a historical fact that all presidents appended that phrase in serious acadamic reference books and textbooks for history and political science students are in effect suppressing the legitimacy of such justified opinions that are consistent with the evidence. This is a foul thing for such professors to be doing, they are in effect abusing their professional titles for the purpose of misleading propagandizing.

Another common response is to simply ignore the fact that there is no evidence that any other president, let alone that all of the other presidents, appended that phrase prior to the Civil War. Instead, the professor tries to change the subject and question the motives of the person protesting that there is no evidence at all, and/or emphasizes the catch all "you can't prove they didn't all say it" defense as if that is sufficient justification for claiming they did say it. The motives of the people criticizing the professors who make this assertion of historical fact, for which there is literally no evidence whatsoever, is to challenge the falsification of history by monotheists for sectarian political purposes. It is the professors responsibility to show that there is sufficient evidence to qualify this 'they all appended "SHMG"' assertion as a historical fact, not the critics responsibility to show that they are religious monotheists who support establishment of monotheism and have proof it was not said in order to have credibility as a critic.

Because I consider all email exchanges to be private unless both parties agree to publish them, I will not reveal the name of the professor or the academic reference book he authored that falsely claims it is a historical fact that all presidents appended this phrase. I will display the emails below with identifying information removed:

My initial email:

The following is from your book [removed]: [removed]

I am not aware of any contemporaneous eyewitness evidence that any president appended "SHMG" to their oath office prior to the Civil War. The confederate president, Jefferson Davis, appears to be the first who we can say with any confidence appended that phrase to a presidential oath of office. If you are aware of evidence that "all" presidents appended that phrase to their oath of office, or for that matter to anything else that they said during their inauguration, then please tell us know about that evidence. Otherwise, please refrain from publishing such a sweeping statement in a textbook as if it is a historical statement when it clearly is not.

The notion that George Washington added "So help me God" to his presidential oath made its debut in the mid-nineteenth century and was first promoted in a published format by Rufus W. Griswold (February 13, 1815 – August 27, 1857) in his book, Republican Court, or American Society in the Days of George Washington, pgs 140-141 (1854). A website maintained by the Edgar Allen Poe Society identifies Griswold as "a failed Baptist minister turned editor" who slandered Poe after Poe died, claiming that "he forged letters by Poe and made changes in the texts of Poe's work to support his lies, portraying Poe as a fiend and a drug addict."

Here's how the debut took place. Early on in Griswold's inaugural narrative, just after Washington had completed pronouncing the words of the oath, he writes:

The Bible was raised, and as the President bowed to kiss the sacred pages, he said, audibly, 'I swear,' and he added, with fervor, his eyes closed, that his whole soul might be absorbed in supplication, 'So help me God.'

Soon afterwards, when Griswold has finished describing Washington's inaugural ceremony, he then adds this tidbit about Washington Irving:

Few persons are now living who witnessed the induction of the first President of the United States into his office; but walking, not many months ago, near the middle of a night of unusual beauty, through Broadway - at that hour scarcely disturbed by any voices or footfalls except our own - Washington Irving related to Dr. [John Wakefield] Francis [1789 - 1861] and myself his recollections of these scenes, with that graceful conversational eloquence of which he is one of the greatest of living masters. He had watched the procession till the President entered Federal Hall, and from the corner of New street and Wall street [a sideway's location about 200 feet away] had observed the subsequent proceedings in the balcony.

One may want to assume that Griswold had used Washington Irving as his source for asserting that Washington had added the "supplication, 'So help me God'," to his presidential oath, but if that is the case, it is not spelled out by Griswold. Furthermore, could six year old Washington Irving, from a distance of 200 feet in a crowd, have seen George Washington momentarily close his eye and then accurately recalled this sixty years latter? Irving's nephew's long biography of his uncle, The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, by Pierre Monroe Irving, 1869, G.P. Putnam's sons, doesn't mention Washington Irving viewing the first presidential inauguration, even briefly, although it did describe Irving's personal encounter with Washington as a young boy. Irving had discussed his biography project with his nephew since the 1840s, and Pierre was assisting his uncle with writing it in the mid-1850s. So if Irving was recalling the inaugural based on his personally witnessing the events then Pierre would certainly have been privy to this and presumably would have recognized its importance to his project. This lack of confirmation that Irving witnessed the first presidential inauguration thus leaves room for doubt that six year old Irving really was a witness to the inauguration as Griswold claimed.

Three years later, when Washington Irving's narrative describing the inaugural ceremony was published, he, too, left out any reference to a source he might have used. That may not be unusual by itself for historians of that period, but what is extremely problematic for Irving's reliability as a credible historian is that he apparently stole his narrative (with the exception of GW adding SHMG) from the Memoir of Eliza S. M. Quincy. Here is the footnote at bottom of page 52:

The previous pages, which describe the entrance and inauguration of Washington, were sent to Mr. Irving, in 1856, at his request, by the Editor, and are inserted in his "Life of Washington," vol iv. pp. 510, 513, 514, but without reference to their source.

Elsewhere in Irving's GW biography, Irving says that two horses pulled GW's Carriage of State. Newspapers of the day said that the Carriage of State, loaned out by the Beekman family, was pulled by four horses. It was one of the few carriages that had four horses. So much for Irving having "watched the procession" while it moved, out of his sight, along Broad Street. Indeed, Irving apparently did little if any original research for his popular biography of George Washington. According to The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, by Franklin Steiner, 1936, most of Washington Irving's biography of George Washington is copied from the biography written by historian Sparks. Similarly, in his article on Washington in the Dictionary of American Biography (1936), J C Fitzpatrick wrote, "Washington Irving, Life of GW (5 vols., 1855-1859) is satisfactory from most viewpoints, though its reliance on [Jared] Sparks lessens the confidence it would otherwise command."

For more information see the January 12, 2009 History News Network article, “So Help Me God”: A George Washington Myth that Should Be Discarded, by Professor Peter Henriques.

Furthermore, the notion that George Washington initiated a precedent, tradition, or custom by adding SHMG to his oath that other presidents have followed appears to have first materialized in the middle of the 1900's during the height of the Cold War! The earliest document we have found that explicitly characterizes appending shmG to the presidential oath as an inaugural tradition is from an article in the Herald Press, January 20, 1953 . This particular notion appears to be a twentieth century invention. A book The Soul of George Washington by Joseph Buffington, (1936) page 144 says 'When he took it in that form and he then bowed his head and kissed the Sacred Book and, with the deepest feeling, uttered the words "so help me God." These latter words, now accompanying the foregoing one in official oaths we owe to George Washington.' In other words, he is claiming that the post-Civil War legal oaths that "now" included that phrase were following a GW precedent, but he did not claim it set an earlier precedent for presidential oaths. As far as we have been able to determine it appears nowhere in anything published in the 1800's.

Sincerely,
Mathew Goldstein

The professors first response:

Aside from the considerable number of eyewitness accounts (you mention several, although you have decided they are not credible), you also might take a look at Washington's first inaugural address, which goes on and on at great length about the Deity. Even if you are correct (I don't see how you could prove it, but that's a question about the logic of social science and historical inquiry) on the particular SHMG issue, the fact that Washington and other presidents used religious themes at their inaugural is simply a matter of historical fact, easily developed through a simple reading of their addresses. This lends credence to accounts that they finished up with SHMG.

So I wonder what point you are trying to make. If it is some point about separation of church and state at the time, the historical record indicates that such separation, while existing under the Constitution ("No religious test...") for certain purposes, did not generally prevent people from swearing oaths to God at judicial and political ceremonies.

My second attempt to get the professor to address the issue of the evidence for his assertion:

Thank you for your quick response.

The 1850's publications claiming GW said "SHMG" are not eyewitness accounts, only one of the authors was alive, old enough to be fluent in English, and in the vicinity. That one author, Washington Irving, did not self-claim to be recalling an oath recitation he heard as a six year old. Again, Irving's published account of the event was copied without attribution from an eyewitness, Eliza Susan Morton Quincy, who, like all of the other known eyewitnesses, didn't claim that GW appended that phrase (someone else later added the "SHMG" to her original account about a decade after she had died, a copy of which, without the SHMG, can be found in The Inauguration of Washington, by Clarence Winthrop Bowen). The best eyewitness account we have of the oath recitation, the only one that actually quotes the oath recitation, was written by a French minister who stood on the stage near GW. That account does not mention GW appending "SHMG".

Donald Ritchie, co-author of the Oxford Guide to the US Gov't, made this statement to Lisa Miller in a Jan 20, 2009 newsweek article titled God and the Oath of Office
Did Washington swear to God? That legend may be as apocryphal as the one about the cherry tree: "The fact is, according to Donald Ritchie, a historian at the Senate Historical Office, we have no idea what most 19th-century presidents have said about God as they were sworn in because for most of American history there were no microphones and no recording devices." Maybe you had a secret "recording device" hidden away somewhere to support your claim about "all his successors"?

If Donald Ritchie can publically make this modest statement then so can you. Of course we shouldn't hide or disguise the fact that most presidents, including GW, utilized religious themes at their inaugurations, just please confine yourself to the evidence when doing so. We have no evidence, for example, that GW made any reference to deity during his second inaugural, which, unlike his first inaugural, was conducted according to GW's direction. In the first inaugural the presence of a bible, the lifting of the bible to his face, the church service, even the writing of the inaugural speech, were actions initiated by or carried out by others on short notice, which is why the absence of any religious references during his second inauguration is significant. Regardless of any other history, the significance of the oath history stands on its own and shouldn't be modified to match the religious preferences of the textbook's author(s) or the potential readership or purchasers.

Given that it is your textbook that asserts GW appending "SHMG" set a precedent that was followed by all other presidents, it seems to me kind of hypocritical for you to accuse me of making too big a deal about this. Are you going to continue to spout this so-called history as real or are you going to fess up to the fact that there are no, zero, known eyewitness accounts that GW ever said "SHMG" during either of his inaugurations?

The professors refusal to engage the issue of the evidence is final:

Please don't e-mail me or contact me again. I am not interested in exchanges with people who are obnoxious. Go write your own reference book if you don't like ours.

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Library of Congress Historian promotes George Washington myths

In May 2005, Dr. Marvin Kranz, historical specialist, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, was interviewed by Senator Durbin about the history of presidential inaugurations. About three and half minutes into the interview Dr. Marvin Kranz says "George Washington took the first inaugural address, and when he was about to take the first inaugural address he said 'where is the bible?'. Nobody had a bible. He wanted to take it on a bible." About four minutes into a video on the Library of Congress web site page titled Presidential Inaugurations: Historical Insights, George Washington's First Inauguration Dr. Marvin Kranz says "Washington said he wanted to take the oath on the bible".

I don't think so. There is no eyewitness evidence that I am aware of that supports the assertion that George Washington "said he wanted to take the oath on the bible" or said "where is the bible?". If he had wanted a bible he could have brought one with him. The first chief justice of New York state, John Jay, was also the second president of the American Bible Society. It is possible that he thought that the swearing-in lacked legitimacy without a bible and made the initial request that one be provided for the ceremony. Chancellor Livingston, Grandmaster of the New York Masons, apparently sent someone, maybe fellow Mason Jacob Morton, to the nearby Masonic lodge to fetch a bible. George Washington's only role here was probably as spectator to all of this. Unfortunately, when it comes to George Washington, it appears that religionists have introduced a number of propaganda myths, and those myths have been repeated so many times that even PhD historians employed by our Library of Congress have been repeating them.

The truth is there is no known eyewitness account stating who requested the bible so we don't know. The first account that I know of which claims Jacob Morton was the person who obtained the bible and the red velvet cushion from the Masonic temple is found on page 124 of Washington and His Masonic Peers by Sidney Hayden, 1867. That is a long time after the fact, its not an eyewitness account, so it appears that we don't know who fetched the bible either. George Washington neither requested the bible nor did he append "so help me God" to his oath of office. Shame on Dr. Kranz for asserting otherwise while speaking as a government employee and historical expert on presidential inaugurations.

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Senate Historian Office promotes false propaganda

Since early this year the United States Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) web site has featured a "so help me God" video that begins with a voice, probably of Warren Earl Burger, former Chief Justice of the United States, saying "shmG" repeated by another voice, probably that of former President Ronald Reagen, followed by a Senate Historian falsely asserting that all presidents have followed George Washington's precedent of appending "so help me God" (shmG) to the constitutionally specified presidential oath of office. There are no known contemporaneous eyewitness accounts of George Washington appended shmG during either of his inaugurations (newspaper accounts of his second inauguration quoted the oath as recited without shmG). The first newspaper accounts of shmG being appended to the presidential oath of office appear during the inaugural ceremony of Chester Arthur in 1881, over 90 years later. Appending shmG to the presidential oath of office became a tradition in the 20th century not long after commercial radios made it practical for many Americans to listen to the ceremony in their homes. Audio of Herbert Hoover's swearing in ceremony proves that he did not append shmG. Here are details about the mid 1850's origin of the George Washington shmG myth.

The Senate Historian Office's "so help me God" video on the JCCIC web site is irresponsibly and indefensibly misrepresenting false presidential oath of office shmG recitation propaganda as historical fact. I have called and written the Senate Historian's office about this spurious quote. They have neither provided citations of contemporaneous eyewitness accounts to substantiate their incredible shmG claims nor taken any action to correct their video or the JCCIC web site text. That office and its employee titles are misnamed. As long as they promote these ahistorical shmG claims they are functioning as the Senate Mythology Office and its employees are serving as Senate Mythologists.

Take action: Call and write the Senate Historian's office and the Senate Rules Committee. Request that they immediately remove all unsubstantiated presidential oath of office shmG claims from the JCCIC and other Senate web pages. Inform them that they are entitled publish such claims only after they are substantiated with citations of contemporaneous eyewitness accounts. Contact information can be found on Atheist Action Central.

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Jefferson letter to Dr. Woods not found

Atheist and secularist web sites and posts by secularists on various discussion forums are attributing the following spurious quote to Thomas Jefferson:

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies" (Letter to Dr. Woods).

The source for this quote is chapter 2 of John E. Remsburg's book "Six Historic Americans: Paine, Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Lincoln, and Grant The Fathers And Saviors Of Our Republic, Freethinkers" published in 1906. No such letter is currently known to exist. If a Thomas Jefferson letter to Dr. Woods turns up in the future then, and only then, can we declare the quote to be genuine.

Some web sites attribute this same quote, with an extra sentence or two added, to a Thomas Jefferson letter to William Short. Jefferson wrote multiple letters to Mr. Short, but a search of the Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive, as well as various other online collections of transcribed Jefferson letters, finds no such quote. Neither the Dr. Woods nor the William Short citations provide a date. This is odd because Jefferson's letters usually begin with a date.

Unless someone identifies such a letter with that quote it must be deemed a probably bogus citation for a highly dubious quote. Please do not use this quote and please let people know that this alleged quote is unverified and should not be used.

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