John Witherspoon and the Spirit of 1776
Editor’s Note: This essay is based on a lecture given at Princeton University on February 9, 2026.
Less than a year into John Witherspoon’s pastoral ministry, the newly ordained clergyman found himself in a shocking predicament.
Witherspoon was ordained by the Presbytery of Haddingon, in the Church of Scotland, on April 11, 1745. While in Scotland, he served two congregations: one in Beith and one in Paisley. This was during his first pastorate in Beith, southwest of Glasgow. A few months after his ordination, Charles Edward Stuart (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”) launched a rebellion in Britain to regain the throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. This James, known as the Old Pretender by his foes, was the son of James II, the last Catholic monarch of Great Britain. He had led an unsuccessful rebellion in 1715 after George I took the throne. The supporters of James II were called Jacobites because “James” is Jacobus in Latin. The Jacobite uprising of 1745 captured the imagination of the British Isles, France, and much of the Continent from the start of the rebellion at Glenfinnan in the highlands of Scotland on August 19, 1745, to the crushing defeat of the Jacobite forces at the Battle of Culloden on April 16, 1746. In between those two dates, Witherspoon, like most lowland Scots, rallied to support King George II and to drive the “Young Pretender” (as Charles came to be called) and his pro-Catholic forces out of Britain once and for all.
Most Presbyterians in Scotland abhorred the rebellion and were alarmed by the prospect of trading the Hanoverians for the Stuarts or reintroducing any form of episcopacy in the realm where the Kirk was the state church. On January 7, 1746, Witherspoon’s Presbytery of Irvine followed the example of other presbyteries and passed a resolution in which they unanimously resolved to do three things: “to do all in their power” to support the “present Government,” to raise volunteers for the royal army from within their parishes, and to assist the Duke of Cumberland (who was leading the governmental forces against the Jacobites) should he come to Scotland.
Witherspoon took it upon himself to fulfill the second item in the resolution, rounding up volunteers for a Beith militia and collecting money to defray their expenses. In a subscription paper for the purpose of raising funds, Witherspoon argued that the money—and, by extension, the militia—would be used “for the support of our religion and liberty, and in defence of our only rightful, and lawful Sovereign, King George, against his enemies engaged in the present rebellion.”
Having raised eighty-eight pounds and fifteen shillings for the cause, and amassing a force of about 150 men, Witherspoon—the twenty-two-year-old, newly minted minister—set out for Glasgow to join the royal army. Armed conflict was not in Witherspoon’s future, but trouble was. When Witherspoon and his men reached Glasgow, the military authorities informed them that their services were not necessary and that they should make the twenty-mile trip back home.
Witherspoon, however, would not be deterred. Instead of heading southwest back to Beith, Witherspoon—along with a young servant who carried the minister’s sword—traveled past Glasgow, northeast toward Falkirk.
On January 17, 1746, Witherspoon joined several other civilians who had come to Falkirk to watch what they hoped would be a decisive defeat of the Jacobite forces. Much to their dismay, what they witnessed was a Jacobite victory. Worse still, Witherspoon and his sword-bearing servant were captured by the Young Pretender’s forces. For more than a week, they were marched through the countryside under Jacobite custody, until on January 25, Witherspoon, along with fifteen others, were imprisoned at Doune Castle near Stirling.
The guards, it seems, were not of the highest quality, for they allowed some of the prisoners to climb to the top of the battlements at their leisure. Seeing there was no sentinel on the west side of the castle, eight of the men attempted a daring escape. At one in the morning, on either January 30 or 31, the eight men attempted to descend the seventy-foot parapet by a rope of blankets tied in knots. Always a heavier-set man, Witherspoon decided he would see how the other seven fared before attempting his own descent. Viewing the mixed results of the seven men’s attempts to descend, Witherspoon determined that waiting in the castle was the better part of wisdom.
Witherspoon’s prudence was quickly rewarded. On the day after the moonlit escape, the Duke of Cumberland started marching his royal army from Linlithgow in the direction of Falkirk and Stirling. The rebel forces quickly broke up and rushed northward toward Inverness, leaving the prisoners behind. All told, Witherspoon was a prisoner of war for about two weeks, the last six days of which were in Doune Castle.
Witherspoon’s imprisonment in Doune Castle is significant, not only for the sheer drama of the event, but for what it says about Witherspoon as a person. Even as a young man, we see many of the qualities that will come to define Witherspoon later in life: a fighting spirit, a love of liberty, assertive leadership, eagerness to join the fray, and a tendency to sometimes get into avoidable trouble.
It might seem strange that Witherspoon fought for George II in the rebellion of 1745, only to later fight against George III in the rebellion of 1776. But we have to remember that in both rebellions, Witherspoon fought on the side of the Presbyterians, against the (possible) rule of bishops, and on the side that he considered to be most conducive to religious and civil liberty. The anti-Jacobite spirit that animated him in 1745 was not different from the pro-revolution spirit that gripped him in 1776.
The Making of an American
When John Witherspoon arrived in America in 1768, he was not thinking about the cause of American independence from Great Britain. Almost no one was in 1768. Witherspoon was thinking about his new role as president of the College of New Jersey. Chartered in 1746, the college had been led by a string of Presbyterian ministers who, though learned and godly, had a penchant for dying not long after taking office. This made Witherspoon’s tenure from 1768 until his death in 1794 the most consequential Princeton presidency possibly until Woodrow Wilson (the first president of the college who was had not been a Presbyterian minister). The formal establishing of a national Presbyterian church and the establishment of the nation itself were indelibly stamped by the influence of Witherspoon and Princeton.
Witherspoon personally instructed an entire generation of educators, legislators, and statesmen. A list of his 469 Princeton graduates includes fourteen college presidents, thirteen governors, twelve members of the Continental Congress, five delegates to the Constitutional Convention, one U.S. president (James Madison), one vice president (Aaron Burr), forty-nine representatives, twenty-eight senators, three Supreme Court justices, eight district judges, one secretary of state, three attorneys general, and two foreign ministers.
Witherspoon’s foray into political matters, and his staunch support for independence, did not happen all at once, but they did happen steadily and soon after he arrived. Less than three years after coming to America, Witherspoon wrote a short piece for the Scots Magazine entitled, The Ignorance of the British with Respect to America (May 28, 1771). This would be a theme in his writings over the next five years. He was never spiteful toward the king. He always thought he was misled and misinformed. He believed the people of Britain just didn’t know what they didn’t know about America.
He was not yet close to encouraging a break with Britain, but those fires were beginning to kindle. Over the next few years, as he became more and more involved in New Jersey politics, he would move increasingly close to the side of independence. Years later, in a 1774 piece called “On the Controversy about Independence,” he would write: “Nothing is more manifest than that the people of Great Britain, and even the king and ministry, have been hitherto exceedingly ignorant of the state of things in America. For this reason, their measures have been ridiculous in the highest degree, and the issue disgraceful.”
In another piece on “Conducting the American Controversy,” Witherspoon took great pains to express his esteem for George III. “I not only revere him as the first magistrate of the realm, but I love and honor him as a man, and am persuaded that he wishes the prosperity and happiness of his people in every part of his dominions.” He went on to say that the British government is not depraved. But they have nevertheless taken steps in American affairs, out of ignorance and prejudice, that are “unjust, impolitic, and barbarous to the highest degree.”
The March toward Independence
In July 1774, Somerset County formed its committee of correspondence, which included Witherspoon. They met, with the committees from eleven other counties, in New Brunswick and drew up resolutions that expressed loyalty to Great Britain but also protested taxation without representation and various other colonial grievances. Witherspoon may have written the resolutions.
Later that summer (or early fall) Witherspoon traveled to Philadelphia. One of the trustees welcomed Witherspoon to his home for a breakfast with Richard Henry Lee and others. John Adams remarked, “Doctor Witherspoon enters with great Spirit into the American Cause.” Later, Adams commented that he spent the evening with “Lee and Harrison from Virginia, the two Rutledges, Doctor Witherspoon, Dr. Shippen.” Witherspoon was as close to the action as one could be. He had met the Lees, the Madisons, and the Washingtons on a student recruiting trip to Virginia back in 1770.
In May 1775, he penned a Pastoral Letter from the Synod of New York and Philadelphia to be read from the pulpits on Thursday, June 29, 1775, the day set aside for a public fast. It begins by asserting that we are in a time of likely civil war, that suffering and public calamity may soon be upon them. Lexington and Concord took place on April 19, only two months earlier. The letter exhorted the Presbyterian members to six things:
(1) Express attachment to and show respect for your sovereign King George.
(2) Be careful to maintain unity throughout the colonies.
(3) Take care to be vigilant over your own members.
(4) Serve one another, pursue public peace, and avoid civil war.
(5) If you are called to fight, conduct the battle with humanity and mercy.
(6) Continue in the exercise of prayer and in gathering together for worship.
In July 1775, he became chairman of the Somerset committee of correspondence.
In October, the New Jersey provincial congress was ready to wrest control of the colony away from the governor and the assembly. The governor was Benjamin Franklin’s illegitimate son, William Franklin. The two had parted ways earlier over political matters. Ben was a patriot, and William was a loyalist. In January 1776, colonial minutemen placed him under house arrest. After Independence, Franklin was jailed in Connecticut for two years, where he continued to clandestinely support the loyalist cause. He was placed in solitary confinement for eight months. He was eventually released in a prisoner exchange.
In February 1776, eleven of twelve New Jersey counties voted for independence. Meanwhile, with Witherspoon at the helm in Somerset, the committee there sought to buy gunpowder. They sought to set up their own textile manufacturing. Witherspoon was preparing for war. In April, two Princeton trustees were mortified to stumble upon Witherspoon (who had been missing from the board meeting) speaking in New Brunswick at a rally, arguing for a complete break with England. He was ready to overturn the law to do it. Witherspoon did not come to the side of independence at the very end, but quite a bit earlier than many others.
A Sermon Heard ’Round the World
On May 17, 1776, Witherspoon preached one of the most significant sermons in the history of this country. Preaching at Princeton, the Scottish pastor turned college president delivered his most famous address. It was a general fast day, appointed by the Congress of the American colonies for prayer and humble supplication before God in the face of an unknown, and possibly war-filled, future.
Witherspoon’s sermon, based on Psalm 76:10, was entitled The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men. It is widely regarded as one of the principal sermons that prepared the way for the Declaration of Independence, which Witherspoon himself would sign less than two months later. The sermon was published widely, including overseas, sometimes by the enemies of independence who included a running commentary alongside Witherspoon’s text so they could rebut his arguments.
After imploring his hearers not only to prepare “for the resolute defense of your temporal souls,” but to consider “the truly infinite importance of the salvation of your souls,” Witherspoon turned his attention to politics.
If your cause is just—you may look with confidence to the Lord and intreat him to plead it as his own. You are all my witnesses, that this is the first time of my introducing any political subject into the pulpit. At this season however, it is not only lawful but necessary, and I willingly embrace the opportunity of declaring my opinion without any hesitation, that the cause in which America is now in arms, is the cause of justice, of liberty, and of human nature.
So far as we have hitherto proceeded, I am satisfied that the confederacy of the colonies, has not been the effect of pride, resentment, or sedition, but of a deep and general conviction, that our civil and religious liberties, and consequently in a great measure the temporal and eternal happiness of us and our posterity, depended on the issue. The knowledge of God and his truths have from the beginning of the world been chiefly, if not entirely, confined to those parts of the earth, where some degree of liberty and political justice were to be seen, and great were the difficulties with which they had to struggle from the imperfection of human society, and the unjust decisions of usurped authority.
There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage.
Witherspoon’s foray into politics will be grossly misunderstood, however, if it is thought that in joining the cause of independence, he left his concerns as an evangelical preacher behind. Witherspoon was always eager to enter the national fray—whether that be against the Young Pretender as a young man in Scotland and, later, in opposition to the Moderate-led state church, or against British rule in America. The setting changed, and so did the perceived enemies, but Witherspoon’s insistence on true religion and civil liberty did not.
Before he broached the subject of independence, the president and preacher had a more important point to make. “In the first place,” he began, “I would take the opportunity on this occasion, and from this subject, to press every hearer to a sincere concern for his own soul’s salvation.” His argument was as simple as it was forceful: if you are right to care about your earthly affairs, how much more your eternal state? “I do not blame your ardor in preparing for the resolute defense of your temporal rights,” he declared. “But consider, I beseech you, the truly infinite importance of the salvation of your souls.”
In urging his hearers to attend to the day of salvation at hand, Witherspoon did not call men to pursue a general interest in deistical benevolence. He did not hold out the prospect of human betterment according to refined manners and an enlightened moral sense. Just as he had his whole ministerial career, Witherspoon called his hearers to the particulars of evangelical Christianity:
Suffer me to beseech you, or rather to give you warning, not to rest satisfied with a form of godliness, denying the power thereof. There can be no true religion, till there be a discovery of your lost state by nature and practice, and an unfeigned acceptance of Christ Jesus, as he is offered in the gospel. Unhappy they who either despise his mercy or are ashamed of his cross! Believe it, “there is no salvation in any other. There is no other name under heaven given amongst men by which we must be saved.” Unless you are united to him by a lively faith, not the resentment of a haughty monarch, but the sword of divine justice hangs over you, and the fullness of divine vengeance shall speedily overtake you.
Even in preaching about politics, Witherspoon did not lose his Calvinist sense of the human predicament. “Nothing can be more absolutely necessary to true religion than a clear and full conviction of the sinfulness of our nature and state,” he declared. “Others may, if they please, treat the corruption of our nature as a chimera: for my part, I see it everywhere, and I feel it every day.” Witherspoon may have come to talk about freedom from England, but not before he talked about freedom from sin and judgment.
As a preacher, Witherspoon was doing nothing different than he had done on the other side of the Atlantic. He had always believed that “national prosperity” and the “revival of religion” were “inseparably connected” (to quote from one of his fast day sermons in Scotland). And essential to the well-being of any nation—whether Britain or its colonies—was the virtue of its people. “He who makes a people virtuous, makes them invincible,” Witherspoon wrote. This is why Witherspoon preached that “[h]e is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion … Whoever is an avowed enemy to God, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country.”
Witherspoon was convinced that preaching personal regeneration was good for the nation, just as he was convinced that his interest in the formation of a new government was an exercise in loving his neighbor. Freedom was necessary on both accounts—spiritually and nationally. “There is not a single instance in history,” he announced, “in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire.” Witherspoon believed this in Scotland under patronage, and he believed this in America under British mismanagement. In both places, he preached for conversion, and in both places, he threw himself into current events, never doubting that only Scripture taught all that was true, only regenerate Christians could practice true virtue, and only true religion could provide the foundation for a people to regain its glory … or, as the case may be, to embrace it for the first time.
One of Fifty-Six
In June, Witherspoon was made a member of the provincial congress of New Jersey. He opened the assembly with prayer. He often took the lead in arguing for independence; so did the other two ministers there, one of whom was Jacob Green (Ashbel’s father). He only served eleven days, but during this time they formally arrested Governor Franklin. When William made a defiant speech against their authority, Witherspoon launched into a speech filled with irony, sarcasm, and equal defiance. On June 22, after disposing of Governor Franklin, the New Jersey congress appointed five delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia: Richard Stockton, Abraham Clark, John Hart, Francis Hopkinson, and Dr. John Witherspoon.
The men were instructed “to join with the Delegates of the other Colonies in Continental Congress, in the most vigorous Measures for supporting the just Rights and Liberties of America; and, if you shall judge it necessary or expedient for this Purpose, we empower you to join with them in declaring the United Colonies independent of Great Britain, entering into a Confederacy for Union and common Defence, making Treaties with foreign Nations for Commerce and Assistance, and to take such other Measures as may appear to them and you necessary for these great Ends (Journals, 5.489-90).
If John Adams’s journals are correct, the delegation from New Jersey arrived on June 28. According to Ashbel Green, Witherspoon offered this memorable quip when some began insisting that the new delegates (like Witherspoon) needed more time for reflection: “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” (Life 159-60).
On July 2, the congress in Philadelphia voted, without dissent, for Lee’s resolution 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, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved” (Journals 5.425). The delegates took all of July 3 and the morning of July 4 to edit Jefferson’s document. Finally, on July 4, the Declaration was adopted unanimously, except for the New York delegation who were still awaiting instructions (even though Jefferson thought his draft had been mangled, and so quickly published his original version).
Congress ordered the Declaration printed, distributed throughout the states, and read aloud. At this point it had no official title, and no one had signed it. The document started running in the newspapers on July 6. 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 course of the next several months, the delegates signed the declaration one by one. Not everyone who signed had actually been in the room on July 2 when Lee’s resolution passed or on July 4 when the declaration was adopted. Benjamin Rush wasn’t made a delegate until August, but he signed it. Robert Morris, one of the richest men in America and one of Pennsylvania’s “no” votes who stayed away so the resolution could pass, signed the document as soon as it was ready on August 2.
The signature of John Witherspoon, who was in the room on July 2 and July 4, can be clearly seen in the second column from the right, fourth name from the bottom. He was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence.
A Presbyterian Rebellion
Not surprisingly, many of the British were none too pleased with their prodigal son. On July 30, 1776, British soldiers on Long Island burned an effigy of Witherspoon. Later at the battle of Trenton, poor John Rosborough, a Presbyterian minister, was bayoneted by a Hessian soldier who thought he was John Witherspoon. A letter to the editor in the General Evening Post (London) accused Witherspoon of being ungrateful for the hard work of English patriots and considered his support for revolution to be based on “malicious innuendos.” In 1778, Witherspoon’s old classmate, Adam Ferguson, referred to North America as “1200 miles of territory occupied by about 300,000 people of which there are about 150,000 with Johnny Witherspoon at their head.” And in 1783, a British officer wrote that Dr. Witherspoon “perhaps had not a less share in the Revolution than Washington himself. He poisons the minds of his young students and through them the Continent.”
A Glasgow editor claimed that Witherspoon was the primary agitator of the rebellion. Another Scot referred to him as “Dr. Silverspoon, Preacher of Sedition in America” and accused him of “political drunkenness.” An Anglican minister in Burlington, New Jersey wrote about him:
Ye priest of Bael …
Mess-mates of Jezebel’s luxurious mess,
Come in the splendour of pontific dress;
Haste to receive your chief in solemn state;
Haste to attend on Witherspoon the great.
Princeton received him, bright amidst his flaws,
And saw him labour in the good old cause;
Saw him promote the meritorious work,
The hate of kings, and the glory of the kirk.
… unhappy Jersey mourns her thrall;
Ordain’d by the vilest of the vile to fall;
To fall by Witherspoon–O name the curse
Of sound religion and disgrace of verse
It ends by saying, “I’d rather be a dog than Witherspoon. Be patient reader–for the issue is trust, His day will come–remember Heav’n is just.”
Witherspoon did more than just sign the most famous document in our country’s history. On November 30 he was elected to serve another year in the Continental Congress as a delegate from New Jersey. He served six years: 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1781, 1782. Attendance was often sporadic, but Green records that Witherspoon was particularly dutiful in attending Congress during his annual appointment. He always sat in Congress and its committee in gown and bands. Green draws a comparison with one John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, a member of Congress, who in 1776 dramatically cast off his clerical gown and revealed himself to be dressed as a colonel in the Virginia company of volunteers.
When the 1777 Georgia Constitution sought to outlaw clergymen from being members of the state’s General Assembly, Witherspoon was aghast and advised that the legislation be rewritten thus:
No clergyman, of any denomination, shall be capable of being elected a member of the Senate or House of Representatives, because {here insert the grounds of offensive disqualification, which I have not been able to discover} Provided always, and it is the true intent and meaning of this part of the constitution, that if at any time he shall be completely deprived of the clerical character by those by whom he was invested with it, as by deposition for cursing and swearing, drunkenness or uncleanness, he shall then be fully restored to all the privileges of a free citizen; his offence shall no more be remembered against him; but he may be chosen either to the Senate or House of Representatives, and shall be treated with all the respect due to his brethren, the other members of Assembly.
In 1777, he was added to the all-important Board of War. He was more fastidious in Congress than almost anyone else, serving on 126 committees. He also signed the Articles of Confederation and worked to see New Jersey ratify the Constitution. He almost certainly would have been a part of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia except that he was at the same time laboring to approve a constitution for the Presbyterian church as they met a few blocks away at Second Presbyterian Church.
Witherspoon did not make it through the war unscathed. As the Redcoats rampaged through New Jersey and took over Princeton, Witherspoon was forced to flee, riding his reddish-brown mare, with his wife riding in the “old family chair.” Tusculum was stripped of its library of rare books from the mother country and from Europe. Many of its valuables were scattered or destroyed. “Our army when we lay there spoiled and plundered a good library” wrote one British soldier.
Richard Stockton’s home was looted as well. And Stockton, a Declaration signer and Princeton trustee, was already a prisoner of the British. Jonathan Sergeant’s fine new home was burned.
Nassau Hall was ravaged as well. The celebration orrery, said to be the finest in the world, was damaged. Nassau Hall and the Presbyterian Church became barracks for British soldiers.
Witherspoon suffered more than the loss of his home, his papers, and the partial destruction of his school.
His son James Witherspoon died at the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777, at age twenty-five. His other son, John, became a physician and accompanied Washington and later traveled to France to secure medical supplies. He was captured by the British in 1781, and was made a prisoner and severely treated. Witherspoon wrote to Franklin, who was able to secure his release, provide him with funds, and send him home.
Any fair-minded observer had to conclude that Witherspoon made good on that promise of the Declaration’s signers: “We pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
On both sides of the Atlantic, Witherspoon flourished as an author, thinker, educator, denominational leader, and controversialist. As a local church pastor in the Church of Scotland, Witherspoon proved to be a successful preacher and writer. As Princeton’s president, Witherspoon set it on firm financial footing and established the college as one of the leading institutions in the new republic. As a politician, Witherspoon argued for limited government, free markets, and a virtuous citizenry. As a philosopher, Witherspoon introduced hundreds of students to the best Enlightenment thinkers and tried to show how reason was compatible with revelation. As a theologian, Witherspoon was staunchly Presbyterian (doing more than any single person to establish a national Presbyterian church in America), though he was eager to work with evangelicals and Calvinists of other denominations.
Few Christians in the eighteenth century wore as many vocational hats, and accomplished as much in so many different fields, as John Witherspoon. The question is whether all these hats held together. I think they did, perhaps just barely, but they did. And I think they tell us something important about the founding of this country and the spirit of 1776.
As the nation’s 250th birthday approaches, we find ourselves as divided as ever (or at least it feels that way) about what America was or should be about. Many are questioning—both on the left and on the right—whether the whole project of Western liberal democracy might be a mistake. For my part, I do not believe Lockean liberalism is the problem; the problem is when this liberalism exists without the communal aims of classical republicanism and the theological assumptions of Christianity. The three strands are undoubtedly frayed, but in the spirit of John Witherspoon and in the spirit of 1776, we would do well as Americans to see if they can’t be tied back together again.