Gunning Bedford (1747-March 30, 1812) was a signer of the United States Constitution. He was the delegate from Delaware to the Constitutional Convention, where he played a considerable part in the Federal Convention. In 1789, he was appointed to the First Federal District Court by President Washington. Gunning Bedford attended Princeton University, sharing rooms with James Madison. He studied under the influence of John Witherspoon, one of the nation's premier theologians and legal scholars.
As a delegate from the State of Delaware, Gunning Bedford would have complied with the requirements for office, as stipulated by that State's constitution:
<Article XXII. Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust...shall...make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: "I, , do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by divine inspiration."> 1747GB001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1747GB001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Gunning Bedford. 1776, Constitution of the State of Delaware, Article XXII. The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America-Published by Order of Congress (Boston: Norman & Bowen, 1785), pp. 99-100. Church of the Holy Trinity v. U.S. 143 US 457, 469-470 (1892). Frances Newton Thorpe, ed., Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies now or heretofore forming the United States 7 vols. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1905; 1909; St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly Press, 1968), Vol. I, p. 142. M.E. Bradford, A Worthy Company (NH: Plymouth Rock Foundation, 1982), p. x. Tim LaHaye, Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1987), pp. 149, 180-181. Gary DeMar, "Censoring America's Christian History" (Atlanta, GA: The Biblical Worldview, An American Vision Publication- American Vision, Inc., July 1990), p. 7. "Our Christian Heritage," Letter from Plymouth Rock (Marlborough, NH: The Plymouth Rock Foundation), p. 3. Gary DeMar, America's Christian History: The Untold Story (Atlanta, GA: American Vision Publishers, Inc., 1993), pp. 67-68. Allen Johnson, ed., Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964), I:123.