Bad News

There's a really good reason I didn't actually get to 1421 on Sunday. I was too busy trying to prove the veracity of the claims made some historians. They're crazy enough that it required a hell of a lot of digging. It turns out that the Founding Fathers actually did intend to found the United States as a Christian nation. There's really no better way to put it than that. A new cache of correspondences was recently discovered moldering away in the archives of a Boston museum. The letters are the personal correspondence of Abigail Adams, best known as the wife of John Adams, the second President. And they're extremely revealing. In an article published in the most recent edition of the North American Journal, Dr. April Fuller*, current Bloch Chair of New England Studies at Miskatonic University put together most of the important points. It turns out that Abigail Adams kept up quite a lively schedule of correspondence. There were, of course, plenty of letters between her and her husband. It was in a letter to her son, sixth President John Quincy Adams, that Dr. Fuller first picked up the trail of evidence.

My dear son. I implore you in the name of the Most High God to continue the work laid out for you and started by your dear father. As you embark on your career I remind you to be ever mindful of your duty to your Lord. There is, after all, no other reason for our current state than the grace of God.

This, of course, shouldn't be taken as anything other than the histrionics of a proud mother. However, there was a letter from Thomas Jefferson that pulled her up short. "It is almost unbelievable," Dr. Fuller said of the find, "But not only does there seem to be proof that the Founding Fathers had ulterior motives, but that there may have been more than simple political ire that came between [John] Adams and Jefferson." From the letter:

Dearest Aby. I tire so of the charades I must constantly engage in to create this nation in God's own image. It's difficult for me to hide behind this public face of skepticism. I long to be free of my mask of doubt. I shall be in Boston soon, however, and hope to see you. It is only with you that I can let my true self show.

Fuller then found an irate letter from John Adams himself.

I can't believe that thrice-damned Madison! Not only did the fool go and start a disasterous war against the British, he continues to insist on his so-called Establishment Clause of the Bill of Rights. He says it protects us from the very tyranny we broke off from Britain to escape. But does he not realize that there is only tyranny in a nation that does not bow to the will of God? That puffed-up, foolish fop. I told Jefferson he would be trouble. But Thomas insisted he could be controlled, that he would agree with the plan.

Bah! Would that he had listened to me in the first place. We'd be so close. I suppose there's still the hope of our dear son. He may be this nation's only chance. That last one is pretty scary. I suppose it's why Dr. Fuller chose to end with it. Either way, this news is a pretty crappy way to start the month of April. Sorry. -------------------------- All citations from: April Fuller, "Under God After All?" North American Journal 83 (March 2009): 47-54.