James McHenry

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James McHenry

James McHenry (November 16, 1753 – May 3, 1816) was an early American statesman. McHenry was a signer of the United States Constitution from Maryland and the namesake of Fort McHenry, the bombardment of which inspired the American national anthem Star-Spangled Banner. He was also a delegate to the Continental Congress from Maryland, and the third United States Secretary of War from January 27, 1796 to May 13, 1800, under Presidents George Washington and John Adams.

McHenry was born into a Scotch-Irish family at Ballymena, Ulster, (the then northern province of Ireland), in 1753. He enjoyed a classical education at Dublin, and immigrated to Philadelphia in 1771 where he became a physician and ran a Baltimore import-export business with his brother.

[edit] Religious beliefs

Like many of the Founding Fathers, James McHenry was known to be a Christian. In an 1813 letter to solicit funds for the first Bible Society in Baltimore, McHenry, its president, wrote:

Public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.