Jeffrey Gibson

Didn't say you did. I spoke of "your OP" = your first posting in this thread, not the OP.

You did when you spoke of the "historical record" being corrected.

No. I was not. Could you point me to some historians/biographers of GW first from Washington's time, second from the time that you would classify right before "up to now", and third from in between these two points, who say so?

Jeffrey

Toto

No no no, I will not be dragged that far off topic. If you care about this issue, try googling Washington "so help me god" where you will find this blog post from 2006 (The link there to the LoC website still says that Washington added "So Help Me God.")

and much more.

Jeffrey Gibson

Hey -- you are the one who brought the issue up as relevant to the discussion..

I did, and after going through a half a dozen or so "next pages", I'm finding nothing that supports your claim that "the general expert consensus of historians up to now has been that Washington said "so help me God?" at his inauguration, even in the appendix devoted to the question of wthere he actually did say this in Forrest Church's So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State (or via: amazon.co.uk) , let alone in the blog post you pointed me (which speaks only of a tradition about this as "having grown up", but nothing about that tradition's being "the expert consensus of historians" of Washington at any time)

At best, I have found a page that that states -- without citation -- that one or two expert historians, including David McCullough, think that he did, but nothing that says, let alone shows that. "the general expert consensus of historians up to now has been that Washington said "so help me God?" at his inauguration.

So is your refusal to provide me with what I asked you for really due to a desire on your part not to be "dragged that far off topic" -- even assuming that you are correct that complying with my request would be what you characterizing as being? Or is it due to something else?

Jeffrey

Toto

It's due to ... life ... is ... too ... short ...

Jeffrey Gibson

Well pardon me for thinking when you claimed as authoritatively and decisively as you did in your pronouncement to me that "the general expert consensus of historians up to now has been that Washington said "so help me God" at his inauguration, you were speaking from knowledge and that it would be a simple and non time consuming thing for you to provide me with the information I requested. question.

And if time really was the issue, you should have said so in the firts place rather than speaking about not being dragged of topic. Moreover, look at all the time you could have saved both of us if you had shown you were speaking from direct knowledge of the subject of your pronouncement, or, if you weren't, you had simply said right up front that you had over reached yourself.

Jeffrey

Toto

The claim that Washington added SHMG to the presidential oath has been so widely repeated that it is just inconceivable to me that anyone would not know about it. But it is not worth my time to dig up a specific reference. What is it that you doubt? That historians of repute accepted this myth, or merely the Library of Congress?

It's like the myth of the cherry tree. Would I have to prove to you with original sources in the original language that there was a myth that Washington chopped down a cherry tree?

Jeffrey Gibson

So your claim is now one about about how widely known the story of GW using SHMG at his inauguration must be given it's alleged repitition.It's no longer that that "up to now" its been the general consensus of experts in matters Washington that the story is true ("the general expert consensus of historians up to now has been that Washington [actually] said said "so help me God".

And the basis of this new claim is not any actual knowledge of, or direct acquaintance with, what historians "up to now" have actually said/written on this matter. Rather, it's what is inconceivable to you.

I see. Very interesting.

Technically speaking, the Library of Congress only repeats the "myth", and then, only on a website about inaugurations that it hosts. But as the article that you pointed us to shows, it -- or at least its officers and employees -- does/do not accept "the myth" as true. So you've misrepresented things here, as well as engaged in bifurcation.

But to get to the heart of your question about what it is I doubt:

1. I doubt the truth of the claim that you made to admonish me ("aren't you aware", you said) that "the general expert consensus of historians up to now has been that Washington [actually] said "so help me God" at his inauguartion.

In fact I doubt that any expert/professional historian, even McCullough, has stated that they think the myth, which is also widely known as first attested to 65 years after the event in a book entitled he Republican Court by Rufus Griswold who cites a childhood memory of Washington Irving as his source, has any historical basis/is true; and

2. I doubt that you were in possession of the knowledge about what any experts on Washington "up to now" had said on the question of the historicity of Washington's saying SHMG at his inaugurartion, that you implied you possessed.

No. But your question is a red herring not only because whether or not there was a myth about the cherry tree/GW's saying SHNG, let alone what the sources of the cherry tree/SHMG tradition about Washington are, or the languages that the sources of these tradition were originally written in, is not the issue in what's been under dispute here. So it's not anything like what you say it is.

For the matter of the cherry tree to be relevant to the issue at hand you would have to be asking me to accept as fact both the historicity of the myth and, more importantly, that "the general expert consensus of historians up to now about the cherry tree tradition has been that it was true and that GW actually did do what the tradition said he did.

So let's have it, Toto. Do you or do you not (a) know for a fact, through direct acquaintance with the works of expert historians who have studied, and written on, GW in the last two hundred odd years, and not through supposition of what they must know, that from first to last there has indeed been a consensus among that GW actually said SHMG at his inauguration as you claimed there has been, and if you do know this for a fact through such direct aquaintance as I mentioned, (b) will you please share some of that knowledge and point me to where it is within their works that they can be found saying not that there is a tradition that GW did so, but that that he indeed did so?

Jeffrey

Yellum Notnef

Wow. Some people will argue over anything just for the sake of arguing.
I don't know if there's an award given out for the most devoted internet hassler with the most time on his hands, but I'd like to make a nomination.

Toto

Here is my personal knowledge of the issue, starting in 2005:

AAI convention In 2005, practically every source that you could find claimed that Washington added the phrase "So Help Me God" to the oath. But Newdow and others researched the issue thoroughly and it all changed.

Here's a thread in CSS, which I also moderate from 2007 from an activist on the issue. Here are some pertinent parts:

So, after several years of historical revisionism and research on the part of a few obsessed secularists, everyone seems to know that this was just a myth. But the Library of Congress, which now admits that it is a myth, or at least can't be proven, has not updated its old website.

Got it, Jeffrey? Until recently, the LoC claimed that Washington added SHMG to the oath. Now they know better, but their webmaster has apparently not gotten around to updating their web site. Or perhaps the religious right activists who work for the Bush administration are unwilling to give up on that myth.

This will be my last post on this. Jeffrey does not seem to know what the issue is, why it is such a hot issue, or that the conventional wisdom has just shifted gears in the last few years, so he can only accuse me of misrepresentation :constern02: and bifurcation (?) I have wasted too much time already.

:banghead:

gstafleu

You lost me here. You asked if "the fact that these words were not part of what known as the Tllbury speech, let alone that Elizabeth never gave "the Tilbury speach" at Tilbury, is news to historians of Elizabeth's life or that any historian of the Elizabethan age and/or biographer of Elizabeth worth his/her salt has ever said she did?" My answer, clearly stated, was: No, I do not believe that. How is that not an answer to your question?

Probably not.
Robert Fisk, for one. He, afaict, was surprised by the reader's comment.
We're talking about its NON-appearance. What is interesting here is that someone like Fisk, not exactly a historically-unaware person, thought that the speech by Elizabeth was real, and was then surprised to find out it was not.

Gerard Stafleu