Monthly Archives: February, 2012
Lost Episode for February 28
Founding Father Richard Stockton died on February 28, 1781 as a result of his deteriorated health from being captured and imprisoned by the British during the War for Independence. Born in Princeton, New Jersey and a graduate of the College, Stockton became a lawyer and eventually served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court of New Jersey (1774-76) and as a member of the second Continental Congress (1776). He signed the Declaration of Independence, which concludes with these words: “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” Stockton pledged and gave his life for liberty. Stockton left a strong legacy of faith to his son Richard, who became a U.S. Senator (1796-99) and a U.S. Representative (1813-15) and to his son Robert, who served with distinction as a U.S. Naval officer in the War of 1812, conquered California and proclaimed it a U.S. Territory (August 17, 1846), and served as a U.S. Senator (1851-53). Stockton, California, was named after him. His daughter Julia married Benjamin Rush, a fellow signer of the Declaration. In his Last Will and Testament, their father, Richard Stockton, wrote: “As my children will have frequent occasion of perusing this instrument, and may probably be peculiarly impressed with the last words of their father, I think proper here, not only to subscribe to the entire belief of the great leading doctrines of the [...]
Lost Episode for February 27
The Honorable Zephaniah Swift was born on February 27, 1759. He was graduated from Yale and became a jurist, politician and author. He served as a U.S. Representative (1793-97), a member of the Abolition Society (1795), a Connecticut Superior Court Judge (1801-06) and Chief-Justice (1806-19). In 1795, Swift wrote the first purely American legal text, titled: A System of Laws of the State of Connecticut, which had President Washington, Vice President Adams, and two Supreme Court Justices as subscribers. Swift also helped frame the Connecticut State Constitution (1814). Swift declared in his 1793 work, The Correspondent: “Jesus Christ has in the clearest manner inculcated those duties which are productive of the highest moral felicity and consistent with all the innocent enjoyments, to which we are impelled by the dictates of nature. Religion, when fairly considered in its genuine simplicity and uncorrupted state, is the source of endless rapture and delight… Christians of different denominations ought to consider that the law knows no distinction among them; that they are all established upon the broad basis of equal liberty, that they have a right to think, speak, and worship as they please, and that no sect has power to injure and oppress another. When they reflect that they are equally under the protection of the law, all will revere and love the constitution, and feel interested in the support of the government. No denomination can pride themselves in the enjoyment of superior and exclusive powers and immunities.”* Zephaniah Swift’s perspective on the [...]
Lost Episode for February 26
Major-General Francis Marion died on February 26, 1795 after serving in the Revolutionary War. “Marion’s Brigade” was a volunteer militia force that could assemble at a moment’s notice. Often outnumbered, Marion’s militia surprised enemy regiments with great success, seeming to attack everywhere at once and capturing many prisoners. Marion’s shrewd tactics and daring exploits earned him the nickname “Swamp Fox.” Ruthless British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, who vainly pursued him, cursed: “As for this damned old fox, the Devil himself could not catch him.” The movie “The Patriot” was loosely based on Marion. Marion’s grandfather, a French Protestant Huguenot who fled to America in 1690 for religious freedom, settled on a farm in South Carolina. In 1775, Francis Marion was elected a member of the South Carolina Provincial Congress and after the War he served in the State Senate of South Carolina for several terms. In 1790, Marion helped write the South Carolina state constitution, and then retired from public life. Marion declared: “Who can doubt that God created us to be happy; and thereto made us to love one another? which is plainly written in our hearts; whose every thought and work of love is happiness and as plainly written as the gospel whose every line breathes love and every precept enjoins good works.”* The Swamp Fox’s belief in the Gospel is a lost episode in American history. *Source Citation: P. Horry and M. L. Weems, The Life of General Francis Marion: A Celebrated Partisan Officer in the Revolutionary [...]
Lost Episode for February 25
On February 25, 1984, President Reagan explained in a radio address: “From the early days of the colonies, prayer in school was practiced and revered as an important tradition. Indeed, for nearly 200 years of our nation’s history, it was considered a natural expression of our religious freedom. But in 1962, the Supreme Court handed down a controversial decision prohibiting prayer in public schools. Sometimes I can’t help but feel the First Amendment is being turned on its head. Ask yourselves: Can it really be true that the First Amendment can permit Nazis and Klu Klux Klansmen to march on public property, advocate the extermination of people of the Jewish faith and the subjugation of blacks, while the same amendment forbids our children from saying a prayer in school?… Up to 80 percent of the American people support voluntary prayer. They understand what the founding fathers intended. The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people from religion; that amendment was written to protect religion from government tyranny… The act that established our public school system called for public education to see that our children learned about religion and morality. References to God can be found in the Mayflower Compact of 1620, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the National Anthem. Our legal tender states, “In God We Trust.” When the Constitution was being debated at the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin rose to say, ‘The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I [...]
Lost Episode for February 24
On February 24, 1794, President Washington wrote to the Rev. James Muir, pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Virginia, responding to a request for renewal of what had become an annual support of a school for orphans: “I have received your letter of the 12th instant, and will direct my manager, Mr. Pearce, to pay my annual donation for the education of orphan children, or the children of indigent parents, who are unable to be at the expense themselves.”* Washington went on to ask Rev. Muir for a more complete report as to how the denotation was making a positive impact on these young lives. According to Washington historian and biographer Jared Sparks, Rev. Muir responded with a detailed accounting of each of the children who were assisted in their education by President Washington’s donation to the school. Sparks elaborates on Washington’s donations: “For many years he had given fifty pounds a year for this purpose, which he continued till his death; and by will he left to the trustees of the Academy in the town of Alexandria four thousand dollars… ‘for the purpose of educating orphan children…’ This sum was bequeathed in perpetuity…”* The fact that President George Washington gave a regular donation to a church for the purpose of caring for orphans shows that he took this biblical responsibility seriously (James 1:27), and it is another lost episode in American history. Jared Sparks, ed., The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, [...]
