Posted on Thursday 29 July 2010
Religious service is usually performed on Sundays at the Treasury office and at the Capitol. I went both forenoon and afternoon to the Treasury. Weekly church services were held in the U. S. Capitol continually from 1795 until well after the Civil War, and were regularly attended by U. S. Presidents, Senators, and Representatives. The practices of the original Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches all repudiate today’s doctrine of “separation of church and state” which purports that our Founding Fathers disapproved of religious activities in official public settings.
America’s rapid rise as a successful nation was a wonder to many foreigners; how could a group of farmers and merchants have defeated what was arguably the world’s greatest military power? Furthermore, how had America established a government which so quickly became envied across the world? To answer questions such as these, many foreign writers traveled to America first to investigate and then to report their findings to their own countrymen. Consequently, their observations on America and American life are perhaps some of the more objective and informative.
One such visitor was Edward Kendall. He traversed America in 1807 and 1808 and then returned to Great Britain where in 1809 he published his three-volume work, Travels in America. Notice his description of election day in America from his visit to Connecticut in 1807:
At about eleven o’clock, his Excellency Governor Jonathan Trumbull entered the statehouse and shortly after took his place at the head of a procession which was made to a meetinghouse or church at something less that half a mile distance. The procession was on foot and was composed of the person of the governor, together with the lieutenant-governor, assistants, high-sheriffs, members of the lower house of assembly, and, unless with accidental exceptions, all the clergy of the State.
The pulpit or, as it is here called, the desk, was filled by three if not four clergymen; a number which, by its form and dimensions, it was able to accommodate. Of these, one opened the service with a prayer; another delivered a sermon; a third made a concluding prayer, and a fourth pronounced a benediction. Several hymns were sung; and, among others, an occasional one a special one for that occasion. The total number of singers was between forty and fifty. The sermon, as will be supposed, touched upon matters of government. When all was finished, the procession returned to the statehouse.