By any measure, John Witherspoon deserves to be classed as one of America’s Founding Fathers. In a recent survey of forty-five professional historians, Witherspoon made the top ten list of “forgotten founders”—that is, influential men and women who deserve more attention from the wider public than they’ve received. That’s probably a fair assessment. Witherspoon wasn’t as influential as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, or Alexander Hamilton, but he can be placed just below that top tier. Indeed, Witherspoon was often part of the inner circle with those men, being invited to the same functions, serving with many of them in Congress, teaching one of them (Madison), and corresponding with most of them as a colleague and sometimes advisor. Most famously, of course, he was one of fifty-six men—and the only clergyman—to sign the Declaration of Independence.
Witherspoon and the Declaration
John Witherspoon arrived in Philadelphia, along with the rest of the newly appointed New Jersey delegation, only a few days before the momentous vote on independence. According to Adams’s journals, the New Jersey delegation, elected by their provincial congress on June 21, took their seats in the Continental Congress on June 28. On July 1, Congress took up Richard Henry Lee’s motion from June 7, “That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown.” The vote was delayed until the next when, after a flurry of backroom negotiations, Lee’s motion passed 12–0 (with New York abstaining).
On July 3, Congress began editing the statement drafted by Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the five-person drafting committee (John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Benjamin Franklin). After taking the whole day and into the next to work on revisions, Congress was finally satisfied (though Jefferson was livid) that the draft had been significantly improved and was ready to be made public. On July 4, the declaration was adopted unanimously, except for the New York delegation who were still awaiting instructions. Congress ordered the statement to be printed, distributed throughout the states, and read aloud.
At this point, the document had no official title, and no one had signed it. New York finally voted on July 19, making the declaration officially unanimous. Then a clerk named Timothy Matlack wrote out a large parchment copy of the declaration for members of the Congress to sign. He finished this decorative copy on August 2 and gave it the official title: “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States” under the header “In Congress, July 4, 1776.” People were already calling it the Declaration of Independence. Over the next several months, the delegates came back one-by-one to Philadelphia to sign the decorative copy. The signature of John Witherspoon—who was in the room for the decisive votes on July 2 and July 4—can be clearly seen in the second column from the right, fourth name from the bottom.
Besides his vote and his signature, what else do we know about Witherspoon’s activity during those consequential days from June 28 through July 4? The Journals of the Continental Congress don’t record any motions or speeches from Witherspoon on these days, but the Journals are only a summary digest. They don’t begin to cover everything that was said or done. Although the historical record is spotty, there are three possible examples of Witherspoon’s involvement in the decisive days in early July.
The first involves an actual change to the Declaration. It is reported by Witherspoon’s most comprehensive biographer, Varnum Lansing Collins, that Witherspoon objected to the use of the word “Scotch” in the phrase “Scotch and foreign mercenaries.” Whether Witherspoon himself was responsible for the change, in the end, the word Scotch was removed.
He always thought of himself (and dressed himself) as a preacher and a pastor.
The second example is mentioned by Ashbel Green and must have been a remark made by Witherspoon on July 1 or July 2. One of the principal arguments against independence was that several delegates had only newly arrived and needed more time for reflection. Witherspoon acknowledged that he was in that class of delegates, that he had not heard all the debates, but that everyone had been following the subject closely and should be ready for a vote. According to Green (as told him by Witherspoon), the Scotsman offered this memorable quip when some in Congress argued for delay: “As to the country at large, it had been for some time past, loud in its demand for the proposed declaration. . . and it was not only ripe for the measure, but in danger of becoming rotten for the want of it.” Green is the best biographical source we have, and he is not prone to carelessness or exaggeration. We can be confident that Green is relaying a story he heard from Witherspoon himself.
The third example, however, is more suspect. It is one of those speeches that I’d like to think is true, but in the end it’s hard to make the case for its complete authenticity.
In 1876, Presbyterians unveiled a statue of Witherspoon in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. It still stands there today. Much of the impetus and finances behind the statue came from William Breed and West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church (which merged with its mother congregation in 1893 and is now known as Tenth Presbyterian Church). The east side of the statue includes a few biographical facts about Witherspoon. The west side records that the statue was erected “under the authority of a committee appointed by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, July 4, 1876.” On the south side there is a quotation from Leviticus 20:10 (which is also inscribed on the Liberty Bell). And on the north side there is this quotation:
For my own part, of property I have some, of reputation more; that reputation is staked, that property is pledged, on the issue of this contest. And although these gray hairs must soon descend into the sepulcher, I would infinitely rather that they should descend thither by the hand of the executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country. –Dr. Witherspoon.
Those lines on the statue are part of a larger speech that Witherspoon is said to have offered when Congress was wavering on the matter of independence. In another famous line from this (supposed) speech, Witherspoon says, “There is a tide in the affairs of men—a nick of time. We perceive it now before us. To hesitate is to consent to our own slavery. That noble instrument upon your table, which insures immortality to its author, should be subscribed to this very morning by every pen in the house.” The speech was printed in a book by Thomas Smyth in 1843, with a footnote attributing the story to Rev. J. M. Krebs. There is another source from 1867 that attributes the story to “the somewhat noted but eccentric Hooper Cumming,” who was a fourth of July orator in New Jersey in 1824. The story is repeated in other sources, mostly with the same lines, often with new dramatic elements, like that every eye was fixed on Witherspoon, or that Witherspoon was revered like an aged patriarch or a north star. There are too many unstable elements and too many impossible flourishes for the story to be taken at face value. For starters, no one was calling for the Declaration to be signed on July 2 or July 4. The document that would be signed didn’t even exist yet. It’s also hard to imagine that Witherspoon—who would live another eighteen years—thought he was about to die in 1776, or that the whole room was wavering at the last minute, or that Witherspoon was the room’s north star. Surely, the story, at least as it has been passed down, is too good to be true.
This doesn’t mean that Witherspoon couldn’t have made a similar speech. Surely, many speeches were given in those first days of July. Surely, some people may have wavered in their final decision. If Green is reliable, and we have no reason to question that he is, then Witherspoon did make a speech urging no more delay. Whether he said exactly what the statue in Fairmount Park ascribes to him remains harder to believe.
A Caution to Consider
It is only fair to point out that as Witherspoon threw himself into the political arena, his zeal lagged somewhat in his other pursuits. During the revolutionary period, he had to leave the affairs of the college to others, which was manageable because Princeton closed for a time and then re-opened with a reduced student body (bottoming out with only five graduates in 1778). He also had set aside many of his responsibilities as a pastor and preacher.
First Presbyterian Church of Princeton began in 1766 (though some services may have started in 1764). Witherspoon was the pastor from 1768, when he arrived in America, until 1793, the year before he died. It wasn’t until 1786 that the church was officially organized, with an elder session and a board of trustees. The Presbytery of New Brunswick seemed to show little concern that the “church” was often not much more than a Sunday preaching station.
An early historian of the church reported that Witherspoon was assiduous in his duties as a pastor to the flock. This was certainly Witherspoon’s commendable example in Scotland. But it seems that his work as a shepherd, though assiduous at first, was hampered by the national duties he took on beginning in 1776. When he was in town, Witherspoon preached twice on Sundays, but the church was effectively closed for the early years of the Revolutionary War. Likely, Samuel Stanhope Smith—Witherspoon’s son-in-law and acting president— preached from 1779 onward when Witherspoon was increasingly absent.
In the 1780s, with Witherspoon occupied elsewhere, and with his health declining, the church declined as well. In 1766, the church comprised fifty-seven families; by 1792, there were only fifty-three communing members (including five Black members). The congregation declined steadily between 1784 and 1792. Witherspoon was back in Princeton during these years, but he struggled with health limitations, not to mention continuing involvement in writing, in the college, and in the affairs of the developing denomination.
We should remember that Witherspoon’s role as a Founding Father came at great personal cost to himself.
By 1786, the congregation was eager to become a particularized church with a full-time pastor. Frustrations with Witherspoon, whom they loved and respected but were ready to move on from, came to a head on April 23, 1793, when the congregation appealed to the presbytery to declare the Princeton pulpit vacant. The Presbytery wisely declined to vote on the matter until they could communicate with Witherspoon directly. At the next meeting in September, the presbytery declared that Witherspoon had never been the regular pastor of the Princeton church and that the church was vacant. The church wanted to call John Abeel, a young Dutch Reformed minister, in 1793, but he declined. Finally in September 1795, they called Samuel Finley Snowden (a former student of Witherspoon’s) to be their first regular pastor.
In the end, we can commend Witherspoon for never leaving his ministerial calling behind. There is no record he moved away from any doctrine taught in the Westminster Standards (other than revising what was written about the civil magistrate). He always thought of himself (and dressed himself) as a preacher and a pastor. But he was also human, with normal human limitations. Witherspoon the politician and Witherspoon the pastor, though never divorced, often related to each other in inverse proportion. With all his other commitments in America, Witherspoon was not able to be the regular, dutiful, all-in parish minister that he was in Scotland.
A Career to Commemorate
While Witherspoon’s record as a pastor in Princeton post-1776 had its ups and downs, the list of Witherspoon’s political activities in the 1770s and 1780s is long and impressive. Most importantly, he served in the Continental Congress for six years (1776–1779, 1781, 1782). Although most delegates were sporadic in attendance, Witherspoon earned the reputation for being steadfast during his annual appointment, always sitting in Congress in a Genevan gown with white clerical bands. He was more diligent in Congress than almost anyone else, serving on 126 committees, including the all-important Board of War. He was also involved in foreign affairs, particularly those related to France. As a decent French speaker (though gained more from reading than from conversation), he was called upon to communicate with diplomats from France.
Witherspoon was not only an outspoken advocate for independence; he was a strong supporter for the union of the thirteen states and of giving more power to the federal government. To these ends, he signed the Articles of Confederation and worked to see New Jersey ratify the federal Constitution.
Witherspoon was not naive about the limits of what government could accomplish or the danger of giving too much power to man made institutions. He was always passionate about the essential necessity of civil and religious liberty. But he also believed, like most educated eighteenth-century men, that there had been advances in the science of human government. As a Calvinist, Witherspoon remained pessimistic about human nature, while as an American, he was optimistic about how God might bless the new republic. Here, for example, is part of Witherspoon’s speech in favor of the not-so-popular Articles of Confederation:
I am none of those who either deny or conceal the depravity of human nature, till it is purified by the light of truth and renewed by the Spirit of the living God. Yet I apprehend there is no force in that reasoning at all. Shall we establish nothing good, because we know it cannot be eternal? Shall we live without government, because every constitution has its old age and its period? Because we know that we shall die, shall we take no pains to preserve or lengthen out life? Far from it, Sir—It only requires the more watchful attention to settle the government on the best principles, and in the wisest manner; that it may last as long as the nature of things will admit.
At the end of his speech, Witherspoon acknowledged his hope that “by the blessing of God upon our endeavours, [the confederacy] will be happily accomplished.”
Witherspoon was not afraid to risk his popularity in order to venture an opinion he thought was right. Case in point: he criticized John Adams when he nominated Thomas Paine to be secretary for the committee on foreign affairs. Witherspoon appreciated the sentiments of Common Sense, but he thought Paine’s comments lacked varnish and that his later work, Plain Truth, stunk with infidelity. He also knew of Paine’s reputation from Robert Aitken, the Philadelphia printer who became a close friend of Witherspoon’s. Based on Aitken’s dealings with Paine, Witherspoon thought the Englishman was intemperate and could not write “until he had quickened his thought with large draughts of rum and water.” He concluded that Paine was a bad character, not fit for so lofty a position. Later, Adams agreed that although no one thought so at the time, Witherspoon proved to be correct.
Finally, we should remember that Witherspoon’s role as a Founding Father came at great personal cost to himself. When the British rampaged through New Jersey in 1776 and 1777, Witherspoon had to close the college and flee his home. When all was said and done, Witherspoon’s house was damaged, many of his papers were burned, Nassau Hall was badly beaten up, and the college would have to double as a hospital, supply depot, and army barracks for the years ahead. Worst of all, Witherspoon lost his twenty-five-year-old son, James, when he was struck by a cannonball and died at the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777. Another son, John, was captured by the British in 1781 and severely treated during his imprisonment (before Benjamin Franklin secured his release). With all the ways he served his country and sacrificed for the cause of freedom and independence, it can safely be said that Witherspoon made good on the promise he affirmed in the Declaration: “We pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”