Moses

===In United States history===

====Pilgrims====
[[File:Embarkation of the Pilgrims.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|left|Pilgrims [[John Carver (Mayflower passenger)|John Carver]], [[William Bradford (Plymouth Colony governor)|William Bradford]], and [[Miles Standish]], at prayer during their voyage to North America. 1844 painting by [[Robert Walter Weir]]]]
References to Moses were used by the [[Puritans]], who relied on the story of Moses to give meaning and hope to the lives of [[Pilgrim Fathers|Pilgrims]] seeking [[Freedom of religion|religious]] and [[Civil liberties|personal freedom]] in North America. [[John Carver (Plymouth Colony governor)|John Carver]] was the first governor of [[Plymouth colony]] and first signer of the [[Mayflower Compact]], which he wrote in 1620 during the ship ''[[Mayflower]]'''s three-month voyage. He inspired the Pilgrims with a "sense of earthly grandeur and divine purpose", notes historian [[Jon Meacham]],{{Sfn | Meacham | 2006 | p = 40}} and was called the "Moses of the Pilgrims".<ref>{{Citation | last = Talbot | first = Archie Lee | title = A New Plymouth Colony at Kennebeck | place = Brunswick | year = 1930 | url = http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&BBID=7810528&v3=1 | publisher = Library of Congress}}.</ref> Early American writer [[James Russell Lowell]] noted the similarity of the founding of America by the Pilgrims to that of [[History of ancient Israel and Judah|ancient Israel]] by Moses:

{{blockquote |Next to the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth are destined to influence the future of the world. The spiritual thirst of mankind has for ages been quenched at Hebrew fountains; but the embodiment in human institutions of truths uttered by the [[Son of man|Son of Man]] eighteen centuries ago was to be mainly the work of Puritan thought and Puritan self-devotion. ... If their municipal regulations smack somewhat of Judaism, yet there can be no nobler aim or more practical wisdom than theirs; for it was to make the law of man a living counterpart of the law of God, in their highest conception of it.<ref name= Lowell>{{Citation | last = Lowell | first = James Russell | title = The Round Table | publisher = Gorham Press | place = Boston | year = 1913 | pages = 217–18}}</ref>}}

Following Carver's death the following year, [[William Bradford (Plymouth Colony governor)|William Bradford]] was made governor. He feared that the remaining Pilgrims would not survive the hardships of the new land, with half their people having already died within months of arriving. Bradford evoked the symbol of Moses to the weakened and desperate Pilgrims to help calm them and give them hope: "Violence will break all. Where is the meek and humble spirit of Moses?"<ref>{{cite book | last = Arber | first = Edward | title = The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | year = 1897 | page = 345}}</ref> [[William G. Dever]] explains the attitude of the Pilgrims: "We considered ourselves the 'New Israel', particularly we in America. And for that reason, we knew who we were, what we believed in and valued, and what our '[[manifest destiny]]' was."{{Sfn | Dever | 2006 | pp = ix, 234}}<ref>{{cite book | quote = [The pilgrims were clearly] animated by the true spirit of the Hebrew prophets and law-givers. They walked by the light of the [[Religious text|Scriptures]], and were resolved to form a Commonwealth in accordance with the social laws and ideas of the [[Bible]]. ... they were themselves the true descendants of Israel, spiritual children of the prophets. | last = Moses | first = Adolph | title = Yahvism and Other Discourses | publisher = Louisville Council of Jewish Women | year = 1903 | page = 93}}</ref>

====Founding Fathers of the United States====
[[File:FirstCommitteeGreatSealReverseLossingDrawing.jpg|thumb|First proposed seal of the United States, 1776]]

On July 4, 1776, immediately after the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]] was officially passed, the [[Continental Congress]] asked [[John Adams]], [[Thomas Jefferson]], and [[Benjamin Franklin]] to design a seal that would clearly represent a symbol for the new United States. They chose the symbol of Moses leading the Israelites to freedom.{{Sfn | Feiler | 2009 | p = 35}}

After the death of [[George Washington]] in 1799, two thirds of his eulogies referred to him as "America's Moses", with one orator saying that "Washington has been the same to us as Moses was to the Children of Israel."{{Sfn | Feiler | 2009 | p = 102}}

Benjamin Franklin, in 1788, saw the difficulties that some of the newly independent [[U.S. state|American states]] were having in forming a government, and proposed that until a new code of laws could be agreed to, they should be governed by "the laws of Moses", as contained in the Old Testament.{{Sfn | Franklin | 1834 |p = 504}} He justified his proposal by explaining that the laws had worked in biblical times: "The [[God|Supreme Being]]&nbsp;... having rescued them from bondage by many miracles, performed by his servant Moses, he personally delivered to that chosen servant, in the presence of the whole nation, a constitution and code of laws for their observance."{{Sfn | Franklin | 1834 | p = 211}}

[[John Adams]], 2nd [[List of Presidents of the United States|President of the United States]], stated why he relied on the laws of Moses over [[Ancient Greek philosophy|Greek philosophy]] for establishing the [[United States Constitution]]: "As much as I love, esteem, and admire the Greeks, I believe the Hebrews have done more to enlighten and civilize the world. Moses did more than all their legislators and philosophers."{{Sfn | Meacham | 2006 | p = 40}} Swedish historian [[Hugo Valentin]] credited Moses as the "first to proclaim the [[Human rights|rights of man]]".<ref name= Shuldiner>{{cite book | last = Shuldiner | first = David Philip | title = Of Moses and Marx | publisher = Greenwood | year = 1999 | page = 35}}.</ref>

====Slavery and civil rights====
[[Underground Railroad]] conductor and [[American Civil War]] veteran [[Harriet Tubman]] was nicknamed "Moses" due to her various missions in freeing and ferrying escaped enslaved persons to freedom in the free states of the [[United States]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clinton |first=Catherine |author-link=Catherine Clinton |year=2004 |title=Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom |location=New York |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |isbn=0-316-14492-4 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/harriettubmanroa00clin }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | first1 = Joyce Stokes | last1 = Jones | first2 = Michele Jones | last2 = Galvin | title = Beyond the Underground: Aunt Harriet, Moses of Her People | year = 1999–2012 | publisher = Sankofa Media | isbn = 9780989575508 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2-asngEACAAJ}}</ref>

Historian Gladys L. Knight describes how leaders who emerged during and after the period in which [[slavery in the United States|slavery]] was legal often personified the Moses symbol. "The symbol of Moses was empowering in that it served to amplify a need for freedom."<ref>{{cite book |last=Knight |first=Gladys L. |title=Icons of African American Protest |volume=I |publisher=Greenwood |year=2009 |page=183}}</ref> Therefore, when [[Abraham Lincoln]] was [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln|assassinated in 1865]] after the passage of the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|amendment to the Constitution outlawing slavery]], [[African Americans|Black Americans]] said they had lost "their Moses".<ref>{{cite book| first =Martha | last = Hodes|title=Mourning Lincoln|url= https://archive.org/details/mourninglincoln0000hode | url-access =registration |year=2015 |publisher=Yale University Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/mourninglincoln0000hode/page/164 164], 237| isbn = 978-0-300-21356-0}}</ref> Lincoln biographer [[Charles Carleton Coffin]] writes, "The millions whom Abraham Lincoln delivered from slavery will ever liken him to Moses, the deliverer of Israel."<ref>{{cite book | last = Coffin | first = Charles Carleton | title = Abraham Lincoln | publisher = Ulan Press | type = reprint | orig-year = 1893 | year = 2012 | page = 534}}</ref>

In the 1960s, a leading figure in the [[civil rights movement]] was [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], who was called "a modern Moses", and often referred to Moses in his speeches: "The struggle of Moses, the struggle of his devoted followers as they sought to get out of Egypt. This is something of the story of every people struggling for freedom."<ref>{{cite book | orig-year = 1957, 1968 | quote =I want to preach this morning from the subject, 'The Birth of a New Nation'  And I would like to use as a basis for our thinking together, a story that has long since been stenciled on the mental sheets of succeeding generations. It is the story of the Exodus, the story of the flight of the Hebrew people from the bondage of Egypt, through the wilderness and finally, to the Promised Land. ... The struggle of Moses, the struggle of his devoted followers as they sought to get out of Egypt.<p>And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.</p> | last = King | first = Martin Luther Jr. | title = The Papers | publisher = University of California Press | year = 2000 | page = 155}}</ref>
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