The Long History of Vaccine Mandates
And why we should follow George Washington’s example
In the last few weeks, an increasing number of businesses have announced vaccine mandates, states announced mandates for schools and teachers, and President Biden announced a mandate for federal employees and active duty soldiers. Although there is a lot of debate about these mandates, there is actually a long history of vaccine requirements, going all the way back to George Washington.
It began with George Washington in 1777, less than one year after the U.S. declared independence from Great Britain. During the Revolutionary War, smallpox was the biggest threat to the Continental Army, threatening to inflict far more damage on the troops than the British forces. While 18th-century Americans didn’t fully understand the science behind smallpox, they knew that it seemed to break out in crowded areas — like big cities or military camps — and killed one-third of all who contracted the disease.
Doctors in Massachusetts first deployed a crude vaccine in the 1720s, and leading figures, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Martha Washington, received the inoculation. To administer the vaccine, doctors lanced a pustule of an infected patient and then sliced the same knife under the skin of a healthy individual. The vaccinated patient usually contracted a milder case of smallpox, rendering them immunized against potentially deadlier strains in the future. Despite the life-saving benefits of the vaccine, many officials distrusted the science and blamed the inoculation for spreading the disease. Under this assumption, the Continental Congress had banned inoculations in 1776.
By February of the following year, however, Washington was desperate. Smallpox was attacking his soldiers, and given the close quarters at camp, there was little he could do to prevent its spread. As regiments from the south planned to march north, he took drastic action to prevent them from catching the disease once they reached Philadelphia. After catching smallpox as a teenager and living with the scars on his face to prove it, Washington knew how deadly the disease could be.
You can read more about the process of vaccination in the full article, and how vaccinations have increased, especially for the military. But mandates have also expanded into civil society. And there’s legal precedent.
In 1905, the Court declared that the Massachusetts law did not violate the Constitution and affirmed that “in every well-ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint.” They also determined that mandatory vaccinations were neither arbitrary nor oppressive if they do not exceed what is “reasonably required for the safety of the public.”
And of course, several vaccinations are required for school children.
You can read the full article, one of my monthly columns, at GOVERNING: