After appointing the proper subordinate officers and
having ordered that the doors should be kept open the business of the
Convention opened every morning with prayer. On the recommendation of Mr. Paul
Carrington, the Rev. Abner Waugh was unanimously elected chaplain, to attend
every morning to read prayers immediately after the bell shall be rung for
calling the Convention. Furthermore, in some States the ratification convention
was held in a church. Clearly, the proceedings of both the Constitutional
Convention and the ratification conventions provide further organic utterances
that the Framers not only supported, but even participated in both public
religious activities and public endorsements of religion.
Under the Constitution Practices of the Executive,
Legislature, and Judiciary On April 6, 1789, following the ratification of the
Constitution, George Washington was selected President; he accepted the
position on April 14, 1789; and his inauguration was scheduled in New York City
the nation’s capital for April 30, 1789. The April 23 New York Daily Advertiser
reported on the planned inaugural activities: On the morning of the day on
which our illustrious President will be invested with his office, the bells
will ring at nine o’clock, when the people may go up to the house of God and in
a solemn manner commit the new government, with its important train of
consequences, to the holy protection and blessing of the Most high. An early
hour is prudently fixed for this peculiar act of devotion and is designed
wholly for prayer.
On April 27, three days before the inauguration, the
Senate: Resolved, That after the oath shall have been administered to the
President, he, attended by the Vice President and members of the Senate and
House of Representatives, proceed to St. Paul’s Chapel, to hear Divine service.
The day before the inauguration, the House approved the same resolution; and
the next day April 30th after being sworn-in, George Washington delivered his
“Inaugural Address” to a joint session of Congress.
In it, Washington declared: It would be peculiarly
improper to omit, in this 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. No people
can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the
affairs of men more than those of the United States.
