Even now, the future is all new clay

Fittingly, the first presidential inaugural occurred in the newness of spring.
To us, it is all settled and dusty history, as solid and firm as the marble of the statues used to memorialize old heroes. But to them it was all new clay, ready to be shaped by each touch of their hands.
George Washington wrote to James Madison 220 years ago today, May 5th, that: “As the first of everything in our situation will serve to establish a Precedent, it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles.”
The new Constitution prescribed the president’s oath, but the first president felt that his unique new office of servant-leadership should also be commenced by a statement to the people. Coming down from the balcony where he had given the oath to the floor of the Senate Chamber, President Washington addressed a joint session of the two Houses of Congress.
In his inaugural address he offered, as his “first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect.”
For the Congress, it was no mystery who Washington knew was that Almighty Being. Washington had always incorporated his faith into his public leadership. Ten years earlier, in May, 1779, in speaking to a different representative body, an assembly of Delaware Indian chiefs, he said:
“Brothers: I am a Warrior. My words are few and plain; but I will make good what I say,” Gen. Washington told the chiefs. “You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are.”
When the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia, on May 6, 1789, wrote to thank the retired general, upon his inauguration, for helping to remove from them the “cloud of bigotry and superstition” and for having “enfranchised us with all the privileges and immunities of free citizens”, President Washington’s response elegantly expressed the Biblical unity of Jews and Christians without offending the faith of either: “May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.”
A few hours before the first inaugural ball began on May 7th, 1789, the first senators met with President Washington so that Vice President John Adams, the president of the Senate, could read to him the Senate’s written concurrence that each precedent set by their new government must be fixed on God’s true principles:
“[W]e are with you unavoidably led to acknowledge and adore the Great Arbiter of the Universe, by whom empires rise and fall,” said Adams on behalf of our first Senate. “We feel, sir, the force and acknowledge the justness of the observation that the foundation of our national policy should be laid in private morality. If individuals be not influenced by moral principles, it is in vain to look for public virtue.”
This Thursday, May 7, 2009, is the National Day of Prayer. Join your community at noon on the courthouse steps. Because even now, the future is all new clay, ready to be shaped by each touch of our hands, each intent of our hearts, and each prayer from our lips.



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Author: J. Michael Sharman
Column No. 170
Publication Date: May 5, 2009
Title: Even now, the future is all new clay
posted by permission

1. George Washington: A Collection, compiled and edited by W.B. Allen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988). Chapter: 179: TO JAMES MADISON May 5, 1789 Accessed from http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/848/102082 on 2009-05-02
2. The Newport Herald, Newport, May 7, 1789, http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/washington-george-the-newport-herald-newport-may-7
3. Washington’s Inaugural Address of 1789, April 30, 1789, A Transcription, National Archives and Records Administration, Accessed from http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/inaugtxt.html on 2009-05-02.
4. George Washington, George Washington: A Collection, compiled and edited by W.B. Allen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988). Chapter: 45: SPEECH TO THE DELAWARE CHIEFS Accessed from http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/848/101782 on 2009-05-02
5. Letter from Levi Sheftal of the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia, May 6, 1789, “Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress: The Father of His Country”, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/loc/washington.html
6. George Washington, George Washington: A Collection, compiled and edited by W.B. Allen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988). Chapter: 191: TO THE HEBREW CONGREGATIONS OF THE CITY OF SAVANNAH, GEORGIA Accessed from http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/848/102106/2200585 on 2009-05-04
“Address of the Senate to George Washington, President of the United States”, May 7. 1789 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=65424