Numerous historians, viewing Washington as imbued with the spirit of the Enlightenment, have portrayed him as a deist. Eighteenth-century deists thought of God as a “prime mover” who had created the universe, then left it to its own devices, much as a watchmaker wound up a clock and walked away. God had established immutable laws of nature that could be fathomed by human reason instead of revelation. Washington never conformed to such deism, however, for he resided in a universe saturated with religious meaning. Even if his God was impersonal, with scant interest in individual salvation, He seemed to evince a keen interest in North American politics. Indeed, in Washington’s view, He hovered over many battlefields in the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. His influence was especially manifest during stirring patriotic victories and hairbreadth escapes from the enemy. Convinced that his life had been spared for some larger purpose, Washington later expressed gratitude to Providence, “which has directed my steps and shielded me in the various changes and chances through which I have passed from my youth to the present moment.”¹⁸ Throughout his life he descried signs of heavenly approbation and seemed to know that he operated under the overarching guidance of a benign Providence.

Many of Washington’s eminent contemporaries, ranging from Marshall to Madison, regarded him as “a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man,” as Marshall attested.¹⁹ Some of Washington’s religious style probably reflected an Enlightenment discomfort with religious dogma, but it also reflected his low-key personal style. He was sober and temperate in all things, distrusted zealotry, and would never have talked of hellfire or damnation. He would have shunned anything, such as communion, that might flaunt his religiosity. He never wanted to make a spectacle of his faith or trade on it as a politician. Simply as a matter of personal style, he would have refrained from the emotional language associated with evangelical Christianity. This cooler, more austere religious manner was commonplace among well-heeled Anglicans in eighteenth-century Virginia.

Washington’s pastor at Pohick Church before the war confirmed that he “never knew so constant an attendant at church as Washington.”²⁰ His early biographer Jared Sparks recorded this comment from Washington’s nephew George W. Lewis: “Mr. Lewis said he had accidentally witnessed [Washington’s] private devotions in his library both morning and evening; that on those occasions he had seen him in a kneeling position with a Bible open before him and that he believed such to have been his daily practice.”²¹ General Robert Porterfield recalled that when he delivered an urgent message to Washington during the Revolutionary War, he “found him on his knees, engaged in his morning’s devotions.” When he mentioned this to Washington’s aide Alexander Hamilton, the latter “replied that such was his constant habit.”²² Washington’s adopted granddaughter saw his self-effacing religiosity as consistent with a hatred of pretension: “He was not one of those who act or pray ‘That they may be seen of men.’”²³ Numerous people left vignettes testifying to Washington’s simple faith. On the other hand, he lacked a speculative bent and was never one to ponder the fine points of theology.

One thing that hasn’t aroused dispute is the exemplary nature of Washington’s religious tolerance. He shuddered at the notion of exploiting religion for partisan purposes or showing favoritism for certain denominations. As president, when writing to Jewish, Baptist, Presbyterian, and other congregations—he officially saluted twenty-two major religious groups—he issued eloquent statements on religious tolerance. He was so devoid of spiritual bias that his tolerance even embraced atheism. When he needed to hire a carpenter and a bricklayer at Mount Vernon, he stated that “if they are good workmen,” they could be “Mahometans, Jews, or Christian of any sect, or they may be atheists.”²⁴ He took pleasure in dropping by Sunday services of other denominations. In Bishop White’s words, “If there was no Episcopal Church in the town in which he happened to be, he would attend the services of any other denomination with equal cheerfulness.”²⁵

Washington loathed religious fanaticism, and on that subject he sounded like a true student of the Enlightenment. “We have abundant reason to rejoice that, in this land, the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition,” President Washington wrote to one Baltimore church.²⁶ “Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.”²⁷ A convinced supporter of the separation of church and state, Washington declared that “no man’s sentiments are more opposed to any kind of restraint upon religious principles than mine are.”²⁸

However ecumenical in his approach to religion, Washington never doubted its signal importance in a republic, regarding it as the basis of morality and the foundation of any well-ordered polity. “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,” he declared in his farewell address.²⁹ For Washington, morality was so central to Christianity’s message that “no man who is profligate in his morals or a bad member of the civil community can possibly be a true Christian.”³⁰

That Washington believed in the need for good works as well as faith can be seen in his extensive charity. George and Martha Washington never turned away beggars at their doorstep. “Let the hospitality of the house with respect to the poor be kept up,” Washington informed his estate manager after being named commander of the Continental Army. “Let no one go hungry away . . . provided it does not encourage them in idleness.”³¹ The Washingtons tried to practice anonymous charity even when it would have been politically expedient to advertise it loudly. Washington’s secretary, Tobias Lear, recorded hundreds of individuals, churches, and other charities that, unbeknownst to the public, benefited from presidential largesse. Even leftovers from the executive mansion were transferred to a prison for needy inmates. Washington had particular sympathy for those imprisoned for debt and gave generously to an organization—later called the Humane Society of the City of New York—that was formed to assist them. He took a special interest in the care and education of orphaned and indigent children and turned into a major benefactor of the Alexandria Academy, established for that purpose.

Washington’s generosity toward friends, neighbors, and relatives could be quite breathtaking. With typical munificence, he paid for the education of several children of his friend Dr. Craik. In 1768, when his friend William Ramsay encountered financial difficulties, Washington remembered that he had expressed a wish to send his son to the College of New Jersey (later Princeton). He therefore volunteered to donate twenty-five pounds per annum to educating the young man there. In making the offer, Washington told Ramsay, “No other return is expected or wished for . . . than that you will accept it with the same freedom and goodwill with which it is made and that you may not even consider it in the light of an obligation or mention it as such, for be assured that from me it will never be known.”³² The biographer Douglas Southall Freeman calls this lovely comment “the most generous sentence” that ever flowed from Washington’s pen.³³ On countless occasions Washington served as an executor for friends and family members, with many such commitments costing him years of backbreaking legal work. It should also be noted that Washington was community-minded long before he entered national politics. Like his forebears, he held multiple public offices as a young man, becoming a justice of Fairfax County and a trustee of Alexandria in the 1760s.