Elihu Palmer
Elihu Palmer was an influential figure in the early American Deist movement, born in Canterbury, Connecticut, in 1764. He was the son of a colonial settler and spent his early years working on his family's farm before attending Dartmouth College, where he graduated in 1787. Initially a Presbyterian minister, Palmer became disillusioned with orthodox doctrines and transitioned to preaching in a Baptist church, ultimately renouncing conventional ministry to promote the principles of Deism. He was a vocal critic of established religions, arguing that they contributed to human misery and hindered intellectual progress. His most notable work, "Principles of Nature," critiques religious intolerance and advocates for a faith grounded in natural laws and rational thought. Palmer was also a passionate supporter of liberty and equality, aligning his beliefs with the ideals of the American and French revolutions. Despite facing personal tragedies, including the loss of his wife and subsequent blindness, he continued to lecture and write until his death in 1806. His legacy includes the establishment of the Deistical Society in New York and contributions to various publications advocating for a secular and rational approach to morality and governance.
Subject Terms
Elihu Palmer
- Elihu Palmer
- Born: August 7, 1764
- Died: April 7, 1806
Militant Deist, the eighth child of Elihu Palmer and Lois (Foster) Palmer, was born in Canterbury, Connecticut. His father was a descendant of a freeman who settled in Connecticut in early colonial times. His mother may have been a descendant of the Rev. John Robinson of Leyden, Holland, and the noted Pilgrim Miles Standish. Palmer labored on his father’s farm until he entered Dartmouth College, somewhat older than his contemporaries. A talented student, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
After graduating in 1787, Palmer studied theology with the Rev. John Foster and preached for a short time in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, before moving on to the Presbyterian church at Newtown, Long Island (now part of New York City’s borough of Queens). Growing dissatisfaction with stern Presbyterian doctrines, particularly the stress given to inherent sinfulness, compelled Palmer to leave Newtown after about six months to go to Philadelphia where he preached at a Baptist church. But in 1791 his heterodox views led him to renounce his church ministry and to become the minister of the Universal Society recently founded by John Fitch, the steamboat pioneer.
Palmer’s doubts persisted, and he advertised in the press that he would deliver a discourse refuting the divinity of Jesus. Palmer never spoke. On the appointed day a huge crowd prevented him from entering the Universal Church. Fearing for his safety, he quit Philadelphia and went to live with his brother, a lawyer, in western Pennsylvania. After reading law, he returned to Philadelphia in 1793 and was admitted to the bar. Three months later, in an epidemic of yellow fever, his wife died and he lost his sight, an affliction that forced him to abandon law.
Palmer sent his children to live with his father in Connecticut and spent twelve months in Georgia lecturing on Deism; in 1796 or 1797 he began to lecture in New York City. These activities led to the formation in New York of the Deistical Society, for which Palmer drew up a set of principles. Members were expected “to promote the cause of nature and moral truth in opposition to all schemes of superstition and fanaticism claiming divine origin.” Palmer’s followers adhered to a “religion of Nature” that sought the progressive improvement of the human species; they believed that education and science are essential to happiness, that civil and religious liberty accord with true human interests, and that there is no human authority to which individuals ought to be accountable for their religious opinions. In typical Deist fashion, the society proclaimed the existence of one supreme deity who is worthy of adoration by intelligent human beings.
To raise funds for the society, Palmer gave frequent lectures in New York City and other eastern cities, earning a reputation as a gifted public speaker. His voice was “strong and sonorous,” wrote an admiring friend, “and he never hesitated for words to express his ideas.” He believed tenaciously in “the justice of his principles and that their propagation tended to promote the best interests of society. . . . As a man he was rigidly moral, a philanthropist, and . . . a zealous advocate for the liberties of mankind. No temptation would induce him for a moment to swerve from what he thought right.”
Palmer contributed articles to the Temple of Reason, a weekly newspaper published by the Deists in New York City and later in Philadelphia. In December 1803 he launched in New York a weekly paper, the Prospect: or, View of the Moral World, which appeared until March 1805.
The essence of Palmer’s views is found in Principles of Nature; or, a Development of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery among the Human Species (1802). He not only attacked Christian intolerance and fanaticism but also repudiated the core principles of Christianity, as well as of Islam and Judaism. He held that religion is the principal reason for human misery, declaring that “the establishment of theological systems claiming divine origin has been among the most destructive causes by which the life of man has been afflicted.” Religion, he asserted, is neither true nor divine; by promoting superstition, fanaticism, and despotism, it blocks the progress of the human mind, corrupts morals, and soaks the earth in blood. Priests and tyrants, said Palmer, “are the privileged monsters who have subjugated the earth, destroyed the peace and industry of society, and committed the most atrocious of all robberies; that which has robbed human nature of its intellectual property.” During the Middle Ages, when religion was the centerpiece of European civilization, wrote Palmer, the human race lost its dignity and its intellect deteriorated; not until the fifteenth century did humanity recover.
Palmer urged all people to place their trust not in Christianity or any other faith but in nature and its laws, which are discovered through the power of the intellect. Believing with the philosophers of the Enlightenment that evil is caused by faulty institutions, he attacked Calvinist teachings that emphasize inherent human wickedness and insisted that evil must be combated by an assault against despotism, prejudice, and superstition and by the promotion of science and education. He also doubted the divine authority of the Bible, which he found to contain “a mixture of inconsistency and contradiction; to call which the word of God is the highest pitch of extravagance: it is to attribute to the Deity that which any person of common sense would blush to confess himself the author of.”
As a rationalist Deist, Palmer rejected miracles and prophecies as inconsistent with the harmony of nature and attacked clergymen as fanatics who take advantage of human ignorance. “The great moral and political questions which now agitate the world,” he declared, “cannot be settled by an appeal to the authority of . . . theological books or the decisions of ecclesiastical councils; they rest upon the broad basis of evidence and by this principle alone they must be determined.”
Not only an outspoken anticlericalist, Palmer was also an eager supporter of the ideals of the American and French revolutions; he championed liberty, equality, and republicanism and denounced tyranny and special privileges for an aristocracy.
Palmer was afflicted with pleurisy in 1805 and died the following year in Philadelphia at the age of forty-one, leaving a second wife, Mary (Powell) Palmer, whom he had married in 1803.
The best treatment of Palmer’s life and thought is found in G. A. Koch, Republican Religion (1933), which also contains the Principles of the Deistical Society of the State of New York (1824) drawn up by Palmer. Palmer’s enthusiasm for republicanism and hatred of tyranny are expressed in An Enquiry Relative to the Moral and Political Improvement of the Human Species, an Oration Delivered in the City of New York on the Fourth of July, being the Twenty-first Anniversary of American Independence (1797). J. Fellows, “A Memoir of Mr. Palmer,” prefaced to a volume of Palmer’s works entitled Posthumous Pieces (1826), contains useful biographical information. See also the Dictionary of American Biography (1934).