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... a six year old witness is a dubious source particularly when he is first writing about the event over 60 years later. I think that is common sense. ....
Pretty weak evidence in any court or discussion.
Conflicting information doesn't reconcile. The point here is that if we have information from multiple independent eyewitness accounts that is consistent then we can assert a historical fact. If we don't have such information then we don't have a historical fact and shouldn't claim otherwise as the JCCIC web site is incorrectly doing here. In this case, Washington Irving doesn't even qualify as an eyewitness to hearing the oath because he was physically too far away in a large crowd to hear it. Furthermore, a six year old witness is a dubious source particularly when he is first writing about the event over 60 years later. I think that is common sense. Does that answer your question?
I didn't actually have a question, but just the comment about historical research. I am not claiming that Washington Irving qualifies as an eyewitness since I do not even know whether he was at GW's inauguration. But he is still a source of information that conflicts with what you present. I am not saying that Irving is correct, just that such conflicting information exists even if it carries limited weight. It is a starting point for a further investigation as to where he got his information from. The inauguration witnesses you brought up, Comte de Moustier and Tobias Lear, did not mention the references to "So help me God". This information about the lack of the statement also carries weight, but it seems that it is to a much greater degree. My point is that a person could probably safely conclude that Washington did not mention the phrase, based on the information you have presented. Nevertheless, records of the event are not airtight and so we draw certain inferences based on indirect evidence. Such inferences can be built even more strongly as we investigate discrepancies. By the way I think I misspoke when I used the word "reconciling conflicting information". What I meant was determining the truthfulness of each piece of conflicting information to determine its truthfulness or falsity.
I wonder what agenda NAProject has? Is he truly interested in setting the historical record straight or does he object to any president using the phrase “so help me God” and is trying to prove that it is a tradition that started after Washington so that the claim that the phrase is not original and should be banned can be pushed.I do not know the historical record on this issue well but it strikes me as being eminently plausible that Washington would append some such religious phrase to the Oath of Office at his inauguration. It is established that the founding fathers were all deeply religious men so why then would it be out of place for our first President to beseech the Lord upon taking office as our first President? Further one account is not definitive and I find it hard to believe that their is only one eyewitness account of the inauguration. Were there no American or foreign newspapers present in New York during the first inauguration? NAProjects assertion is full of holes and he only presents negative evidence while trying to discount any positive evidence, I detect that he desires a certain outcome and will ignore any evidence that is contrary to what he wants the truth to be.Once again, I want to know NAProject's agenda in seeking to supposedly straighten out the historical record. The website he quotes is sponsored by the Nonbeliever Antidiscrimination Project which immediately makes me suspect his agenda. It would be prudent for all of us to take anything said there and by him with a grain of salt and demand independent verification before accepting any claims he makes.
I am reviewing the longer explanation on the NAProject web site. The site links to a pdf file of the Comte de Moustier's letter regarding the inaugural address. One thing I noticed about the letter is that it is a summary of Washington's address, not a word-for-word dictation of it. In fact, the last sentence that the Comte de Moustier writes in summary of the address ends with the second to last paragraph of Washington's address as can be seen here. In other words, he skipped over large portions of the inaugural address in the course of his summarization. It would not be surprising – perhaps even expected of him – that he would not mention the inclusion of a four-letter sentence at the end of the address. I therefore don't think that a lack of mention regarding the phrase “So help me God” from the Comte de Moustier's letter can really be said to support the argument that Washington didn't say it.
Having just finished McCullough's bio of John Adams, I found that he too indicates SHMG was part of the Oath (taken by GW). Two points here… Adams was far closer and more dependable than the six year old Irving and I doubt McCullough puts anything in any of his works because it is conventional wisdom (w/o checking).Wally
My question is whether someone is arguing that Irving claimed he got his information about the phrase from his own experience or if he got it from somewhere else. Upon reviewing this thread I can't find it asserted that he's basing his knowledge off his personal recollection. I agree that a six-year-old witness would not be a reliable source for such a phrase. However, if Irving did write somewhat extensively on the first inauguration he would have had to do his own research anyway. I have been assuming that Irving therefore got his information about “So help me God” from a separate source. I am not saying that the separate source is reliable either. I'm just pointing out that he probably didn't use his personal recollection for it.
Not sure… that was the gist of the first post, as I made it, that of a recollection of irving. I might be all wet though…. 😉
Having just finished McCullough's bio of John Adams, I found that he too indicates SHMG was part of the Oath (taken by GW). Two points here... Adams was far closer and more dependable than the six year old Irving and I doubt McCullough puts anything in any of his works because it is conventional wisdom (w/o checking).Wally
I say McCullough probably did put that in his book because it is conventional wisdom, not because he verified that it is true. All anyone needs to do to convince me otherwise is provide a citation for a primary source document for George Washington or John Adams inaugurals or for any other pre-Civil War president's inaugural that claims shmG was appended to the oath.
Not sure... that was the gist of the first post, as I made it, that of a recollection of irving. I might be all wet though.... 😉
Rufus Griswold said that Washington Irving claimed to witness the inauguration ceremony from the corner of New Street and Wall Street. Oddly, neither Washington Irving himself nor his nephew, who wrote a biography of Washington Irving, wrote that Washington Irving witnessed the inauguration ceremony.
I wonder what agenda NAProject has? Is he truly interested in setting the historical record straight or does he object to any president using the phrase "so help me God" and is trying to prove that it is a tradition that started after Washington so that the claim that the phrase is not original and should be banned can be pushed.[/QUOTE]It began sometime after the Civil War began, not after George Washington. I don't object to any oath taker saying those words after the oath is completed.
....It began sometime after the Civil War began, not after George Washington. I don't object to any oath taker saying those words after the oath is completed.
Nor do I; nor object to them not appending same.As far as conventional wisdom goes, it exists for the same reason stereotypes do... that there is oft times more truth there than we can know for sure. It may not have been cited because it was "commonly known at the time" and / or we have not yet found the mention. Questioning is the key and we need to keep looking for the truth. For me, this slides into the realm of the Hancock quote about his signature... in character but unproven by any solid evidence.Wally
Nor do I; nor object to them not appending same.[/QUOTE]The oath taker can say anything before the recitation of the law specified oath begins and after the legal oath recitation is completed. However, I do object to any oath giver adding phrases (in some cases small substitutions or omissions on the prior written request of the oath taker are justified) to any legal oath. For most of the 20th century presidential inaugurations the Chief Justices appended that phrase which is an extralegal modification to the constitutional oath.
My main objection to any of this is that many, while swearing to uphold and defend the Constitution, in the end do not. Sadly, we as a people aren't smart enough or angry enough to hold them accountable. MTCW.
It seems to me that this is a non-issue being turned into an issue. Negative evidence is not evidence. NAProject has admitted that there are no contemporary sources that claim whether it was said or not. I still fail to comprehend the nature of his objection. As Phid has pointed out there are a couple of sources other than Irving that indicate the phrase was used, and NAP's source fails to clear the issue up. I would argue that the historical record thus far is ambiguous enough that the non-use of the phrase has been seriously cast into doubt and the Senate Historical Office should be considered correct. It would appear that Washington did indeed use the phrase "so help me God" or some similar usage, at least from the extant sources.
