Theocrats" vs. "Infidels

Until 1832, the Reverend James Renwick Willson, a pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Albany, New York, had been the relatively unknown pastor of a small congregation in an obscure denomination. In that year, however, Willson gained statewide fame—or infamy—for his pamphlet Prince Messiah's Claims to Dominion over All Governments: And the Disregard of His Authority by the United States, in the Federal Constitution. In the pamphlet, Willson denounced the Federal Constitution for its failure to mention God or Christ and condemned the Founding Fathers as non-Christians. His attacks on Adams, Jefferson, and Madison would have been controversial enough, but Willson's assertion that “[t]here is no satisfactory evidence that Washington was a professor of the Christian religion, or even a speculative believer in its divinity, before he retired from public life” aroused particular ire in the New York Assembly. Members were further angered by Willson's savage criticism of Mordecai Myers, a Jewish member of the Assembly; Myers had opposed the legislature's practice of opening each day's session with prayer: “This was in character,” according to Willson, “as all the chaplains pray in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, whom his fathers crucified, and whom he rejects as an imposter.” These statements outraged the New York Assembly, which voted 95 to 2 to delete Willson's name from the list of rotating Albany clergy who offered up prayer at the beginning of each day's session.1

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