Since the fourth of July is nearly here, I thought it would be good to find an appropriate quote from one of the founders on religious freedom. The religious right constantly repeats the specious claim that “America is a Christian nation.” This is simply not true.
Thomas Jefferson was not himself at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but prior to that, he and James Madison were instrumental in the disestablishment of the Church of England in Virginia. The Virginia law on religious freedom had a great influence on the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which guarantees freedom of worship (or not to worship) while prohibiting the establishment of religion. Some might try to argue that freedom of religion meant freedom to choose from the various Christian sects, but did not extend to non-Christian religionists, and certainly not to atheists. But this claim is refuted by the following quote from Jefferson’s autobiography regarding the scope of the Virginia law guaranteeing religious freedom. He wrote:
“The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitudes of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy auhtor of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read, “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.”
In other words, everybody has equal legitimacy, including atheists. This is not a Christian nation.
Here’s an even more definitive bit of evidence demonstrating that the United States was not founded as a Christian nation. In 1797, the United States Senate unanimously ratified, and President John Adams signed, The Treaty of Tripoli, which officially ended our war with the Barbary pirates. The treaty states: “As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Musselmen [an eighteenth century English word for Muslims]…it is declared…that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
Elsewhere, the treaty states more succinctly: “The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.”
This may be totally bogus and is definitely not high minded, but I caught snatches of a presentation at the Aspen Ideas Institute that was broadcast on July 3rd. The speaker was a well regarded amateur historian (whatever that might actually mean), who was discussing the Declaration of Independence and the events surrounding its drafting and “announcement”. In the Q and A period, someone asked if July the 4th was the accurate date and suggested it was actually completed on July 2nd. The speaker noted that there was some confusion on this and said that July 2nd might have been the date had not the “founding fathers” forgotten that they needed to have some kind of ceremony and ultimately didn’t find time for it until the 4th. So much for the “sacred” founding of the U.S. It was so important that they forgot it?
It was further noted that the declaration didn’t take on its iconic status and now inflated significance until years later, perhaps even after the civil war. I can’t verify any of this stuff and will have to leave it to Lucretius and other real historians. Just interesting that an event now given almost “holy” status by the “christian nation” advocates may not have been nearly the event as it is now characterized.
It was also noted that Britain had already issued its own divorce decree and announced they would attack vessels of the colonies before the colonies had actually announced their side of the divorce. These divorces can be so messy!
I think I would have liked Thomas Jefferson a lot!