original sin, 14, 87–88, 195
Paine, Thomas, 18–21, 73, 74, 113, 131, 142–48, 173, 190, 192, 196, 199; Conway biography of, 146–47; death penalty opposition by, 20, 40, 144, 145, 147; French imprisonment of, 20, 40, 146, 147–48; humanism and, 24, 98, 107, 108; Ingersoll as philosophical descendant of, 189, 193; Ingersoll’s standard lecture on, 18; religious belief of, 20, 182; reputation revival of, 1, 18, 58, 142–48, 150; vilification of, 18–19, 20, 69, 146, 147, 148, 184; works of: The Age of Reason, 19, 20, 40, 62, 145; “Common Sense,” 142; The Crisis Papers, 142–43, 147; The Rights of Man, 143
painkillers, 78, 80
Paley, William, 37–38, 86; Evidences, 36, 37; Moral and Political Philosophy, 36
pantheism, 133
papal infallibility, 66, 140, 184–85
Parker, Theodore, 172
Parker family, 172
Parks, Rosa, 111
parochial schools, 4n, 64–66, 67, 70, 100–101, 141, 153, 154, 183, 185
passion. See emotion
Pasteur, Louis, 79, 80
patriotism, 183–84, 200
Paul, Ron and Rand, 108n
Paul, Saint, 91, 164, 183
Peabody, Philip G., Ingersoll anti-vivisection letter to, 203–5
Peck, Harry Thurston, 68–69, 70–71
Phillips, Wendell, 52
Pinker, Steven, The Better Angels of Our Nature, 170n
Players’ Club, The (NYC), 160
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 110
“Plumed Knight” (Ingersoll speech), 59–60, 60n, 89, 101, 177
poetry, 36–37, 45–46, 52–53, 62, 73, 94, 152–53, 161; Ingersoll eulogy for Whitman, 75, 206–11
politics and government, 57–76; barriers to agnostics/atheists and, 56, 178–79, 200–201; Catholics’ influence on, 55–57, 139, 141, 185; Christian nation advocates and, 4, 98–99, 139, 179, 195; corruption cases and, 59, 101–2; current conservative strands and, 4, 108n; divine authority belief and, 63–64, 95, 98, 137, 143–45, 144n, 150, 195; freethought movement and, 54, 68–70, 150, 170; humanistic values and, 97–98; Ingersoll’s ties with, 10, 11, 27, 50–55, 57–61, 63–71, 97–98, 100, 101–3, 163, 178–79, 200–201; obeisance to religion and, 55, 150; proper role of religion in, 1, 2, 6, 20; public religiosity and, 136–37, 150–52, 178, 200, 201; religious hypocrisy and, 27, 55; religiously based moral principles and, 152; religious tests for officeholders and, 131, 136, 137, 138, 139; religion-based tyranny and, 143–44, 199–200; role of religious belief and, 4n, 11, 26–27, 54–56, 57, 66–68; secular basis of (see church-state separation; Constitution, U.S.) slavery issue and, 49, 50, 53; social Darwinist beliefs and, 106–7. See also state governments
populism, 100, 149
pornography, 99
postal service, 99, 101–2, 106
poverty, 24, 162–63, 199–200; birth control and, 186; social alleviation policy and, 97, 189; social Darwinist belief about, 24, 106, 107, 126–27. See also wealth disparities
pragmatism, 158
“Preacher, The” (Whittier), 52–53
predestination, 46
Presbyterians, 16, 32, 54, 66, 140, 177; Ingersoll’s father’s ministry and, 33, 34–35, 36, 40–41
press: Ingersoll obituaries/ editorials and, 22, 27, 173–75, 178–81; Ingersoll’s agnosticism and, 67, 178–79; Ingersoll’s last words and, 173–74; reports of Ingersoll’s speeches by, 13, 75–76, 89, 92n
progress, 85, 107, 162; Ingersoll’s belief in, 5, 87, 127, 168; verifiable evidence of, 77–78, 79–80
Progressive movement, 11
Prometheus Books, 181
property taxes. See tax policy
prostitution, 99
Protestantism, 41, 98–99, 114, 139; dominance in America of, 153–55, 177, 195; nonconformist sects and, 32, 133, 139; obscenity laws and, 152; political anti-Catholicism and, 65, 66–67, 139; religious pluralism increase and, 141; sermons on Ingersoll’s death and, 176–78; slavery issue and, 32–33. See also fundamentalism; liberal Protestantism; specific denominations
pseudoscience, 199. See also social Darwinism
public accommodations, 110–12
Public Accommodations Act (1964), 110
public schools: Catholic opposition to, 141; church-state separation and, 9, 105, 142, 153–55, 186–87; importance to Jewish immigrants of, 70, 154; Protestant influences on, 153–55; secular issues and, 9, 105, 141–42, 153–55; social Darwinist opponents of, 106; southern resistance to, 136; tax support for, 64–65, 70, 106, 154, 155; teaching of evolution and, 23, 183, 186–88
Puck (magazine), 21
Puritanism, 92–93, 138, 145, 186
Quakers, 20, 32, 52–53
racial inequality, 109–13; civil rights laws and, 100, 103, 110–11, 134; immigration laws and, 114–16; inferiority beliefs and, 24, 107, 108, 113, 116, 117; segregation and, 110–13
radical politics, 70, 183
railroads, 58, 59, 115
Rand, Ayn, 24, 107, 108n, 109
rape, 121, 145
reason, 1, 7, 24–25, 88; Ingersoll’s belief in, 158, 166–67, 170, 196; religion vs., 164, 199–200
Red Scare (1919–21), 183
Reform Judaism, 16, 90
religion. See organized religion; specific religions
religious books, 36–37, 42, 48. See also Bible
religious freedom. See establishment clause; freedom of conscience; freedom of religion
religious fundamentalism. See fundamentalism
religious right, 4, 6, 9, 90; historical revisionism of, 129, 136–37
religious schools. See parochial schools
religious skeptics. See agnostics/atheists; freethinkers
Republican Party, 57–68; African American civil rights and, 112; economic positions of, 103; immigration law and, 115; Ingersoll’s agnosticism and, 178–79; Ingersoll’s ties to, 10, 53, 54, 57–61, 63–65, 67–68, 70–71, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102–3, 163, 178; nineteenth-century policies of, 64–65, 98, 99–101
revealed religion. See organized religion
Reynolds, C. B., 129, 131–36, 142
Riddle, Oscar, 187
rights of man: secular basis of, 3; as unalienable, 128. See also equal rights; human rights; women’s rights
Rights of Man, The (Paine), 143
Robespierre, Maximilien, 40
Roman Catholic Church. See Catholicism
Roosevelt, Franklin D., “Happy Warrior” speech, 60n
Roosevelt, Theodore, 18, 94, 147
Rose, Ernestine L., 114
Rose, Robert Selden, 33
Rose Hill Mansion (NY), 33
Round Oak Company, 72–73
Ruple, Jack, 190, 191
Russian Orthodox Church, 165n
St. Nicholas Orchestra, 175
Salubria (utopian community), 133
Sand, George, 73
Sanger, Margaret, 10, 107, 186
Santorum, Rick, 4n
Satan, 36–37, 86
Scalia, Antonin, 144n
science and technology, 1, 5, 6, 7, 24, 31, 77–96, 160, 166; animal vivisection evils and, 169–70, 203–5; birth control and, 118; as challenge to biblical literalism, 16, 17–18, 23, 136, 148–49; as freethinker proof, 77–78; Ingersoll’s communications skills and, 88–90, 95–96, 198–99; nineteenth-century communication and, 45; observation-based verifiability of, 77–78, 79–80; optimism and, 127; political parties and, 61; potential dangers of, 169–70; religious accommodation with, 16, 90–91, 93, 95; religious beliefs vs., 79–80, 85–86, 141, 148, 167–68, 183, 197. See also evolution theory
Scopes, John T., 23
Scopes trial (1925), 22–23, 25–26, 133, 149, 176, 182, 187
Scott, William, Lessons in Elocution, Or, A Selection of Pieces, in Prose and Verse, 44
Scottish Enlightenment, 46
Second Inaugural Address (Lincoln), 62n, 112, 150
secular government. See church-state separation
secular humanism. See humanism
seculari
sm: existential questions and, 157–58; as founders’ constitutional intent, 2–5 (see also church-state separation); freedom of conscience and, 202; humanism and, 7, 24, 97–128, 191; influences on young Ingersoll and, 42–49; Ingersoll’s creed of, 161–62, 189; Ingersoll’s definition of, 125–27; Ingersoll’s legacy to, 196–97; primary argument of, 77; public schools and, 105, 153–55; religion balanced with, 9, 16, 26, 29–30, 94, 148; religious enemies of, 69, 156–57, 183–84; social Darwinism and, 24, 25, 107–8, 113–14, 125; two divergent American strands of, 24–25, 107–9. See also agnostics/atheists; freethinkers
segregation, 110–13
Seidl, Anton, 42
self-education. See autodidacts
Seneca Falls (NY), 29
“separate but equal” doctrine, 110
sexual behavior, 6, 120, 164–66; obscenity (Comstock) laws and, 99–100. See also birth control
Shakespeare, William, 62, 73, 74, 123, 160, 161, 196; Ingersoll’s love of, 42–44, 174–75; Lear’s soliloquy, 161, 162, 163
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 46
Sherman (TX), 41
Shiloh, Battle of (1862), 52
Sibbes, Richard, Believers’ Bowels Opened, 36
single land tax, 103
slavery: border areas and, 48–49; contentious issues of, 49–50, 136; de jure, 110; religious sanctions for, 32–33, 52–53, 63, 140, 163–64, 199. See also abolitionism
smallpox vaccination, 78
Smith, Al, 60n
Smith, Frank, 181
Smith, Joseph, 32
social conservatives, 108n
social Darwinism, 24–25, 104–9, 199; inferiority beliefs of, 24, 107, 108, 113–14, 116; Ingersoll’s view of, 24, 104–6, 109, 115–16, 127–28, 158; secular humanism vs., 125–27
socialism, 70, 158
social issues, 31, 103–5, 186; religion-sanctioned injustices and, 199–200; secular humanist beliefs and, 97–98, 125–26; social Darwinist beliefs and, 24, 106, 107, 126–27. See also labor movement
Socialist Party, 11, 109
Society for Ethical Culture, 90
Society for the Suppression of Vice, 99, 100n
Solomon, 38–39
“Some Mistakes of Moses” (Ingersoll lecture), 14, 89–90, 114; Yiddish translation of, 28, 70
sound recording, 97n
Spadefore, Joseph, 190–91
Spanish-American War, 95, 98, 150
species: emergence of new, 81n; extinction of, 94
Spencer, Herbert, 24, 25, 106, 115, 126–27
Spinoza, Baruch, 192, 196
Stalinism, 169
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 10, 29, 32, 107, 113–14, 118, 121–22; Woman’s Bible, 122
Stark, Pete, 55–56
“Star Route” trials (early 1880s), 101–2
state governments: anti-contraceptive laws and, 186; equal protection rights and, 134; establishment clause and, 64–65, 136; federal tensions with, 136; free speech/religion guarantees by, 133–34; religion-based laws of, 131, 136, 137–38
Stockton (California) Daily Record, 181
suffering: animal vivisection and, 189, 203–5; divine origin belief about, 86–89, 95, 157, 199–200; human efforts against, 201–2; science-based alleviation of, 78–79, 86–87
suffrage. See voting rights; woman suffrage movement
Sumner, William Graham, 106–7
Sunderland, Rev. J. T., 181–82
supernaturalism: Ingersoll indictment of, 58, 85–86, 95–96, 163, 167, 173; scientific advances vs., 79–80, 85–86, 96, 167–68
superstition, 79–80, 91, 120, 167
Supreme Court, U.S., 110–11, 112, 115, 134
“survival of the fittest,” 24, 25. See also social Darwinism
Talmage, Rev. Thomas DeWitt, 54–55
tax policy, 103, 150; Catholic bid for religious school support and, 4n, 64–66, 67, 70, 100–101, 153, 154, 183, 185; public schools and, 64–65, 70, 106, 154, 155; religious institution exemptions and, 64–65, 67, 70, 99
technology. See science and technology
temperance movement, 122
Tennessee, 23
Texas, 71
Texas State Board of Education, 188
textbooks, 23, 183, 187–88, 201
theater, 160
theocracy, 58, 98, 129, 136, 200, 201
theodicy problem, 86–89
Tolstoy, Leo, 164–66; “The Kreutzer Sonata,” 164–66
Transcendentalists, 172
Triangle Shirtwaist fire (NYC, 1911), 105
Truth Seeker (freethought publication), 41, 91, 99, 100n, 152; Ingersoll eulogies roundup by, 179–80
Tubman, Harriet, 32
Twain, Mark, 10, 61
tyranny, 143–44, 145
unalienable rights, 128
Underground Railroad, 50
Union Army, 51–52, 61
Unitarians, 16, 32, 139, 172, 181–82
Universalists, 32, 133, 139
vaccination, 78
Vaseline (as contraceptive), 100n, 152n, 186
Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786), 154
vivisection, 169–70, 199, 200; Ingersoll letter (1890) on, 203–5
Volney, Constantin, The Ruins, 62
Voltaire, 73, 74, 113, 129, 130n, 173, 184, 192, 196, 199; Dictionnaire Philosophique Portatif, 130
voting rights, 112, 113–14. See also woman suffrage movement
Wagner, Richard, Siegfried’s “Funeral March,” 175
Wallace, Rev. George A., 178
Warren, Sidney, 72
Washington, DC, 33, 101, 112, 160
Washington, George, 19, 20, 30n, 132, 137, 147, 155
Washington Post, 179
“watchmaker” argument, 37–38, 86
wealth disparities, 6, 24, 107, 149–50, 162–63
White, Ronald C., Lincoln’s Greatest Speech, 62n
White House, 112
Whitman, Walt, 10, 45–46, 73, 74, 75, 161; Comstock obscenity charges and, 152–53; “The Common Prostitute,” 156; Ingersoll eulogy for, 75, 206–11; Leaves of Grass, 152–53
Whittier, John Greenleaf, “The Preacher,” 52–53
“With His Name Left Out, The History of Liberty Cannot Be Written” (Ingersoll lecture), 18
Woman’s Bible (Stanton), 122
woman suffrage movement, 29, 32, 113–14, 118, 122, 124
women: Christian asceticism and, 164, 165; Ingersoll’s belief in intellectual equality of, 117, 123; moral conventions and, 124–25, 152, 200; nineteenth-century role of, 33–34; religiosity as group of, 119–20
Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 122
women’s rights, 6, 34, 39, 68, 109, 117–25, 171–72, 200; birth control as precondition for, 118–19, 127, 152, 171; divorce and, 120–21; economic justice and, 105, 124–25; educational opportunity and, 119–20; Ingersoll’s last court case defending, 171–72. See also feminist movement; woman suffrage movement
workers. See labor movement
Yale University, 106–7, 154
yellow fever, 94
* This remark was made by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, a devout and devoutly conservative Catholic, on a Sunday morning television news show in February 2012. He was, ironically, disparaging John F. Kennedy, the nation’s first Catholic president, for having famously told a group of Protestant ministers during his 1960 campaign that he believed “in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference.” Earlier in the week, after President Barack Obama had suggested that every American ought to be able to go to college, Santorum’s reaction was, “What a snob!”
* For Crawford’s memories of Ingersoll and of the early days of baseball, see Lawrence S. Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times, chapter 4.
* I learned this while writing a weekly column, “The Spirited Atheist,” for the On Faith blog published by the Washington Post. The emails I receive from ou
traged fundamentalists generally begin with an assertion that goes something like, “You claim to know that there is no God, but you have no proof.…” Readers who insist on calling themselves agnostics rather than atheists often voice the same misapprehension and suggest that it is “arrogant” to claim absolute knowledge of the nonexistence of a deity. But I do not claim to possess that knowledge, any more than Ingersoll or Paine did. To the fundamentalists I reply that while there is no evidentiary proof of a negative, there is also no evidentiary proof (other than inadmissible supernatural propositions) of the existence of God. To agnostics who object to the word “atheist,” I suggest that they consult Ingersoll and the dictionary.
* The gigantic exception to this tendency was Richard Hofstadter, whose Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944) and Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963) remain required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the continuing importance of the battle between religious fundamentalism and modernism in American politics.
* The Seneca Falls Declaration of Rights and Sentiments was written by Stanton, in consultation with Mott, at her kitchen table and was modeled after the Declaration of Independence and the American Anti-Slavery Association’s founding document, written in 1833 by William Lloyd Garrison and titled Declaration of Sentiments.
* The increase in the number of Americans who do not belong to any church and who consider their outlook on public affairs wholly or predominantly secular was first reported in the American Religious Identification Survey conducted by the City University of New York in 2001. The trend has continued during the past decade.
† Ingersoll’s mother, who died when he was only two and a half years old, was a collateral descendent of the prominent New York revolutionary figure Robert R. Livingston, who administered the oath of office to George Washington in 1789, when New York City was the nation’s capital.
* The history of slavery in areas where it was practiced in the North can be even touchier than it is in the South. When I toured Rose Hill, which has been restored by the Geneva Historical Society, in 2001, the guide did not mention that David Selden Rose was a slaveholder. Only when I returned to New York City and began doing some background research in the History and Genealogy section of the New York Public Library did I discover that this had been a plantation in every historical sense of the word.