Ingersoll, Robert Green (1833-1899)

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Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899)

Agnostic

A Question of Faith. The most famous critic of religion during the Reconstruction period was the son of an Orthodox cleric. Robert Ingersoll was born on 11 August 1833 in Dresden, New York, where his father, Congregational minister John Ingersoll, was serving a church. His mother, Mary Livingston Ingersoll, died when Robert was two years old. The Reverend Mr. Ingersoll remarried, and when his second wife died, married a third time. During Robert’s youth, the family moved frequently as his father sought a secure pastoral position. The moves took them from Ohio to Wisconsin to Illinois. Such frequent moves could have disrupted the Ingersoll children’s education, but their father taught them at home. By the time he turned eighteen, Ingersoll was a teacher himself, working in Waverly, Tennessee. In 1854 he and his elder brother, Ebon, began reading law at the office of a local lawyer and Democratic politician. In 1860 Ingersoll secured his reputation as a public speaker by substituting for the main orator at an Independence Day celebration with only a few hours’ notice and preparation time.

Military Service. Ingersoll’s wartime experiences led him to question authority. When the Civil War broke out, he organized a volunteer cavalry regiment, of which he became a colonel. He saw action at Shiloh, Tennessee, and Corinth, Mississippi, before he was captured on 18 December 1862, by Confederate cavalry commanded by Nathan Bedford Forrest. Ingersoll received a parole and made his way back to Union lines, where he was assigned the command of prisoners of war awaiting exchange. When no exchanges were arranged, Ingersoll resigned his commission and returned to Illinois to practice law with his brother. His abiding memory of the Civil War was what he considered to be incompetent military leadership that refused to fight for the real purposes of the war, emancipation and the disempowering of the South. He began to question all authority and soon developed a reputation as an agnostic, or one who believes that humans can know nothing positive about the existence of God.

Politics. Back in civilian life, the Ingersoll brothers performed a political service for the Republicans. The Ingersolls had been Union Democrats and were unmoved by the Copperhead movement in Illinois. On 25 March 1864 Illinois Republican congressman Owen Lovejoy died. His district was reconfigured, and Ebon Ingersoll ran successfully for the vacancy as a Republican, partly because of his brother’s abilities as a stump speaker. Together the Ingersolls helped bring the Union Democrats into the Republican fold and strengthen the Grand Old Party in Illinois. Ingersoll, who had been the chief speaker at services memorializing Stephen Douglas in 1861, performed the same function at services for Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

Reconstruction. Ingersoll achieved his only political office in this period; his friend Richard J. Oglesby, governor of Illinois, appointed him attorney general of the state, a position he held from 28 February 1867 to 11 January 1869. In March 1868 he allowed the Chicago Grant Club to place his name in nomination as governor of Illinois. Historians have thought that rumors of his agnosticism led to his defeat, but actually his lack of a firm political base in Illinois seems to have been the cause. He nevertheless remained interested in politics and delivered his most famous speech in 1876. That summer, he supported Maine senator James G. Blaine in the running for the Republican candidate for president. Although Blaine lost the nomination to Rutherford B. Hayes, the sobriquet Ingersoll bestowed on him on that occasion stuck, and Blaine became known as “the Plumed Knight.”

Tradition of Agnosticism. Ingersoll went public with his private religious opinions in 1872 when asked to give the principal address at an annual observance of the birth of Thomas Paine, author of the anti-Bible tract The Age of Reason (1794-1796). The speech, titled “The Gods,” did more than honor Paine; it emulated him. Like Paine, Ingersoll pointed out that Scripture showed a supposedly all-perfect divine being behaving in an ill-tempered and self-centered manner. Ingersoll, however, went beyond Paine in pointing out that all the world’s religions had the same tendency to picture their divine beings as if they were badly behaved humans. His lecture started with a statement that writings concerning the gods really reflected humanity’s concerns: “An honest God is the noblest work of man.”

Speaking Career. Ingersoll emulated Paine in another way. He identified with those whose religious beliefs brought them persecution. On 3 May 1874 he spoke before the Free Religious Society in Chicago on the topic of “Heretics and Heresies,” praising individualists who thought for themselves and condemning the institutions, especially churches, who tried to censure such people. Nevertheless, Ingersoll remained a popular figure. Once, while on a long train trip, he sat next to Lew Wallace, and the two men struck up a conversation about religion. Wallace was so fascinated by Ingersoll’s witty criticisms of the miracles and wonders to which believers gave credence that he resolved to investigate biblical history for himself, and the result was the famous novel Ben-Hur (1880). Ingersoll died at Dobbs Ferry, New York, on 21 July 1899. In accordance with his wishes, his remains were cremated without religious ceremony.