A breath of fresh air -- thanks! Having been an
unabashed atheist for 90% of my long life, it's
great to know that my hero Tom Jefferson wasn't
even a real Deist (as I've always been taught),
much less an X-tian like our rulers would have you
believe. 'Course Tom has almost been drummed out
of the Founding Father's Klub already, and our
Revolution has been renamed the War of Independ-
ence for decades now......
While I agree in substance with much of the article Brooke Allen
composed, here is a rebuttal that my eldest sister (the one who is
happy to stay in Oakland, where she lives) sent for my perusal:
http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/02-09-05.asp
Did George Bush Lie About America Being Founded on Christian Principles?
By Gary DeMar
“The lesson the President has learned best—and certainly the one that
has been the most useful to him—is the axiom that if you repeat a lie
often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration’s
current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on
Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian
principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the picture as
a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent.” Thus
begins an article by Brooke Allen that was posted on the website of
“The Nation” on February 3, 2005.1 It’s obvious that Allen has not
done a thorough study of American history as it relates to its
founding documents. There is much more to America’s founding than the
Constitution. America was not born in 1877 or even in 1776. The
Constitution did not create America, America created the Constitution.
More specifically, the states created the national government. The
states (colonial governments) were a reality long before the
Constitution was conceived, and there is no question about their being
founded on Christian principles.
Allen’s article is filled with so many half truths that it would take
a book to deal with them adequately. For those of you who are new to
the work of American Vision, there are numerous books on the subject
that easily refute Allen’s assertions.
* America’s Christian History: The Untold Story by Gary DeMar (1995).
* America’s Christian Heritage by Gary DeMar (2003).
* The United States: A Christian Nation by Supreme Court Justice
David J. Brewer (1905).
* The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of
the United States Developed in the Official and Historical Annals of
the Republic by B. F. Morris (1864).
* Christianity and the American Commonwealth by Charles B.
Galloway (1898).2
Here is Allen’s first assertion: “Our Constitution makes no mention
whatever of God.” “No mention whatever” is pretty absolute. Given
this bold claim, then how does she explain that the Constitution ends
with “DONE in the year of our Lord”? “Our Lord” is a reference to
Jesus Christ. This phrase appears just above the signature of George
Washington, the same George Washington who took the presidential oath
of office with his hand on an open Bible, the same George Washington
who was called upon by Congress, after the drafting of the First
Amendment, to proclaim a national day of prayer and thanksgiving. The
resolution read as follows:
That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon
the President of the United States to request that he would recommend
to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and
prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the
many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an
opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution for their safety and
happiness.
It seems rather odd that the constitutional framers would thank God
for allowing them to draft a Constitution that excluded Him from the
Constitution and the civil affairs of government.
Allen is correct that there were a number of Enlightenment principles
floating around the colonies in the late eighteenth century as well as
anti-clericalism. And there is no doubt that some of these principles
made their way into the Constitution, although it’s hard to tell where
when compared to the obvious Enlightenment principles inherent in the
French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789). But we should be
reminded of Allen’s absolutist claim of a complete dissolution of
religion from political considerations in the Constitution. She has
set the evaluative standard. If she is correct, then why didn’t the
framers presage the French revolutionaries by starting the national
calendar with a new Year One? Why did the Constitutional framers set
aside Sunday—the Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue—as a day of rest
for the President (Art. 1, sec. 7) if it was their desire to
secularize the nation as Allen suggests? The French revolutionaries
reconstructed the seven-day biblical week and turned it into a ten-day
metric week in hopes of ridding the nation of every vestige of
Christianity. Nothing like this was done in America.
Then there’s the issue of the state constitutions. One of the reasons
some give for the absence of a more explicit declaration of God in the
Constitution was the fact that the state constitutions made numerous
references to God. The issue of religion was the domain of the states.
Since the Federal Constitution was a document of enumerated powers, to
mention religion in a more specific way would have given the national
government jurisdiction over religious issues. The framers believed
that such issues were best left to the states. Constitutional scholar
and First Amendment specialist, Daniel Dreisbach, writes:
The U. S. Constitution’s lack of a Christian designation had
little to do with a radical secular agenda. Indeed, it had little to
do with religion at all. The Constitution was silent on the subject of
God and religion because there was a consensus that, despite the
framer’s personal beliefs, religion was a matter best left to the
individual citizens and their respective state governments (and most
states in the founding era retained some form of religious
establishment). The Constitution, in short, can be fairly
characterized as “godless” or secular only insofar as it deferred to
the states on all matters regarding religion and devotion to God.3
Keep in mind that the national Constitution did not nullify the
religious pronouncements of the state constitutions, and neither did
it separate religion from civil government. The First Amendment is a
direct prohibition on Congress, not the states, to stay out of
religious issues: “Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
This is a good indication that the states were to be unmolested on
their religious requirements. As I’ve noted elsewhere,4 even today
every state constitution makes reference to God. Here’s a sample of
some of the state constitutions and their religious language during
the time the Constitution was drafted:
* Pennsylvania’s 1790 constitution declared, “That no person, who
acknowledges the being of God, and a future state of rewards and
punishments, shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be
disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this
commonwealth.”
* The Constitution of Massachusetts stated that “no person shall
be eligible to this office, unless . . . he shall declare himself to
be of the Christian religion.” The following oath was also required:
“I do declare, that I believe the Christian religion, and have firm
persuasion of its truth.”
* North Carolina’s 1868 stated that “all persons who shall deny
the being of Almighty God” “shall be disqualified for office.”5 The
1776 constitution, that remained in effect until 1868, included the
following (XXXII): “That no person, who shall deny the being of God,
or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority
either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious
principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State,
shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in
the civil department within this State.”6 North Carolina describes
itself as a “Christian State” in the 1868 constitution (Art. XI, sec. 7).
If, as Allen maintains, “God only entered the picture as a very minor
player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent,” how does she
explain these state constitutional provisions? If the federal
Constitution nullified these state constitutional mandates, then her
point would be valid. The thing is, God was a major player in the
founding of America for more than 150 years before the Constitution
was drafted.
The Constitutions says nothing about morality or values. There are no
prohibitions against murder, theft, or rape. The word “law” is used
numerous times, but it is never defined. The author of an 1838 tract
entitled, An Inquiry into the Moral and religious Character of the
American Government, makes an important observation: “The object of
the Constitution [is to] distribute power, not favour; to frame a
government, and not to forestall and clog the administration of it by
words of preconceived partiality for this or that possible subject of
its future action.”7 This is especially true when religion was an
issue reserved to the states. States wrote educational provisions into
their constitutions, while the Federal Constitution remained silent on
the subject. The 1876 constitution of North Carolina includes 15
sections on education.
In attempt to drive a stake in the belief that America had “been
founded on Christian principles,” she resurrects the 1797 Treaty of
Tripoli and its statement that “the Government of the United States .
. . is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”8 I’ve
dealt with this treaty elsewhere,9 but let me summarize the argument here.
The statement in question was to assure a radically religious (Muslim)
government that America would not depose that government and impose
Christianity by force. A single phrase ripped from its historical
context does nothing to nullify the volumes of historical evidence
that Christianity was foundational to the building and maintenance of
this nation. The 1797 treaty constantly contrasts “Christian nations”
(e.g., Article VI) and “Tripoli,” a Muslim stronghold that was used as
a base of operations for Barbary pirates. Muslim nations were hostile
to “Christian nations.” The Barbary pirates habitually preyed on ships
from “Christian nations,” enslaving “Christian” seamen. “Barbary was
Christendom’s Gulag Archipelago.”10 In Joseph Wheelan’s Jefferson’s
War, detailing America’s first war on terror with radical Muslims, we
learn that Thomas “Jefferson’s war pitted a modern republic with a
free-trade, entrepreneurial creed against a medieval autocracy whose
credo was piracy and terror. It matched an ostensibly Christian nation
against an avowed Islamic one that professed to despise Christians.”11
Wheelan’s historical assessment of the time is on target: “Except for
its Native American population and a small percentage of Jews, the
United States was solidly Christian, while the North African regencies
were just as solidly Muslim—openly hostile toward Christians.”12
In drafting the treaty, the United States had to assure the ruler of
Tripoli that in its struggle with the pirates “it has in itself no
character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of
Musselmen,” that “the said states never have entered into any war or
act of hostility against any Mehomitan [Muslim] nation” due to
religious considerations.
A survey of the state constitutions, charters, national
pronouncements, and official declarations of the thirteen state
governments would convince any representative from Tripoli that
America was a Christian nation by law. The Constitution itself states
that it was drafted, as noted above, “In the year of our Lord.” The
American consul in Algiers had to construct a treaty that would assure
the ruler of Tripoli that troops would not be used to impose
Christianity on a Muslim people. A study of later treaties with Muslim
nations seems to support this conclusion. The 1816 “Treaty of Peace
and Amity with Algiers” is a case in point: “It is declared by the
contracting parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions
shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony between the two
nations; and the Consuls and the Agents of both nations shall have
liberty to celebrate the rights of their prospective religions in
their own houses.”13
Piracy, kidnapping, and enslaving Christian seamen remained a problem
despite the 1797 Treaty. In addition, Tripoli demanded increased
tribute payments in 1801. When President Jefferson refused to increase
the tribute, Tripoli declared war on the United States. A United
States navy squadron, under Commander Edward Preble, blockaded Tripoli
from 1803 to 1805. After rebel soldiers from Tripoli, led by United
States Marines, captured the city of Derna, the Pasha of Tripoli
signed a treaty promising to exact no more tribute.
It is important to note that the 1805 treaty with Tripoli differs from
the 1797 Treaty in that the phrase “as the Government of the United
States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian
Religion” is conspicuously absent. Article 14 of the new treaty
corresponds to Article 11 of the first treaty. It reads in part:
“[T]he government of the United States of America has in itself no
character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of
Musselmen.” Assurances are still offered that the United States will
not interfere with Tripoli’s religion or laws.
It’s obvious that by 1805 the United States had greater bargaining
power and did not have to bow to the demands of this Muslim
stronghold. A strong navy and a contingent of Marines also helped. But
it wasn’t until Madison’s presidency that hostilities finally stopped
when he declared war against Algiers.14
Those who use the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli as a defense against the
Christian America thesis are silent on the 1805 treaty. For example,
Alan Dershowitz cites the 1797 Treaty as “the best contemporaneous
evidence” against claims that the United States was founded as a
Christian nation,15 but he makes no mention of the 1805 treaty and
other treaties that are specifically Trinitarian.
If treaties are going to be used to establish the religious foundation
of America, then it’s essential that we look at more than one treaty.
In 1783, at the close of the war with Great Britain, a peace treaty
was ratified that began with these words: “In the name of the Most
Holy and Undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to
dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George
the Third, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain. . . .”16 The
treaty was signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay. Keep
in mind that it was Adams who signed the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli.
In 1822, the United States, along with Great Britain and Ireland,
ratified a “Convention for Indemnity Under Award of Emperor of Russia
as to the True Construction of the First Article of the Treaty of
December 24, 1814.” It begins with the same words found in the
Preamble to the 1783 treaty: “In the name of the Most Holy and
Indivisible Trinity.” Only Christianity teaches a Trinitarian view of
God. The 1848 Treaty with Mexico begins with “In the name of Almighty
God.” The treaty also states that both countries are “under the
protection of Almighty God, the author of peace. . . .”
If one line in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli turns America into a secular
State (which it does not), then how does Allen deal with the treaties
of 1783, 1822, 1805, and 1848 and the state constitutions? She
doesn’t, because she can’t. Allen needs to go back and do a bit more
research and look at resources beyond the typical college professor’s
bag of tricks and sleight of hand.
robert luis rabello
"The Edge of Justice"
Adventure for Your Mind
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=9782>
Ranger Supercharger Project Page
http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/
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