US Treaty with Tripoli

[Stringer]

After all the discussion on the Founding Fathers and their position towards religion, I thought this to be interesting.

This treaty was initiated by George Washington, was finally completed by John Adams and then ratified by Congress in 1797.

This article of the treaty is the interesting one regarding Founding Fathers take on our "Christian Nation":

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

[Toad]

Of course then you have to consider the First and Second Barbary Wars.

But hey... it wasn't about religion. Or was it? The prisoners being mere infidels and all.



They may not have espoused Christianity in the founding documents but they were Deists fer shure, dude!

[Stringer]

Never claimed they weren't, Toad....and I am aware of the subsequent activity after this treaty was signed.

Of course Jefferson, as you know, filed a bill in Virginia for religious freedom that was

meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infedel of every denomination.

As John Meacham wrote in his book American Gospel

The great news about America--the American gospel, if you will--is that religion shapes the life of the nation without strangling it.

and

Driven by a sense of providence and an acute appreciation of the fallibility of humankind, the Founders made a nation in which faith should not be singled out for special help or particular harm.  The balance between the promise of the Declaration of Independence, with its evocation of divine origins and destiny, and the practicalities of the Constitution, with its checks on extremism, remains the most brilliant of American successes.

Damn smart fellows......