May 29
I am writing to comment on a portion of Ken
Harding’s reply to a message posted on the April
Feedback. In objecting to the thesis of a posting (that the
United States is a Christian nation), Mr. Harding wrote,
“In 1797 America made a treaty with Tripoli,
declaring that ‘the government of the United States,
is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian
religion’. ” The treaty in question did say
this so Mr. Harding is correct as far as that goes, but the
story of the treaties with Tripoli, and the Barbary Wars
that led to the final one, is somewhat more
complicated.
Pursuant to treaties with the Barbary powers
(Algerians), signed in 1795 and 1796, the young United
States was forced to make large payments of tribute, naval
stores, and “incidental blackmail” to the
Tripolitan government. The latter treaty, concluded in
Tripoli on Nov. 4, 1796, contained in its Eleventh Article
the quote repeated by Mr. Harding.
However, in 1801 the pasha of Tripoli demanded more
money from the United States, and when this was refused he
went to war (the Barbary Wars). After a vigorously pursued
campaign by the United States, including a 500 mile march
across the desert to attack an important city, the pasha
capitulated and signed a new treaty on June 4,1805. This
treaty, negotiated by the U. S. from a position of
strength, said nothing about the Christian religion. An
interesting coda to this affair is found in a letter from
William Eaton, the U. S. consul at Tunis; to Commodore John
Rodgers, the U. S. naval commander. In his letter of June
13, 1805, Eaton wrote, “Our peace with Tripoli is
certainly more favorable; and, considered separately, more
honorable than any peace obtained by any Christian nation
with a Barbary regency, . . .”. Regardless of what
any treaty may have said, the U. S. consul certainly
appears to have considered the United States to be a
Christian nation.
(The account of the War and treaties is from the
Encyclopedia Americana, [“Barbary Wars,” pp.
222-23]. Eaton’s letter is reproduced in American
State Papers, Documents, Legislative and Executive of the
Congress of the United States covering the period 3-3-1789
to 3-3-1815, edited by Walter Lowrie and Matthew St. Clair
Clarke; Vol. II; p. 716; Washington: Gales and Seaton;
1832.)
In his scholarly work “Church and State in the
United States,” Anson Phelps Stokes treats this
subject (the treaty with Tripoli and the Christian
antecedents of the United States). He writes, “In the
early days of the Federal government several of the states,
by the oaths of office prescribed in their constitutions,
by the specified disqualifications for office, or by other
methods, did as a matter of fact virtually establish
Christianity, and sometimes Protestant Christianity, as the
religion of the State, and this without constitutional
challenge of the part of the Federal government. . . .
There can be no question that the states and the Federal
government considered that they were Christian states.
“The only statement of any importance which we
have found in the official documents of the United States
which seems to deny specifically that the government was
founded on the Christian religion is Article XI of the
treaty with Tripoli . . ..”
After a brief discussion of Article XI (containing the
‘not founded on the Christian religion’
clause), Stokes writes, “The clause has often been
quoted by those who wish to deny that the United States as
a government has any special regard for the Christian
religion, but they have almost invariably failed to call
attention to the fact that the treaty was superseded, less
than a decade later, by [another treaty] in which the
clause in question denying that the United States
‘is, in any sense, founded on the Christian
religion’ is omitted.” Stokes also writes,
“The change [omitting the 1797 clause] . . . is
highly significant from our standpoint, especially as it
was made during the Jefferson administration." Stokes ends
the discussion by noting the “Christian ethic and
ideal” that underlie our government.
(This is quoted or derived from pp. 497-99 of
Stokes’ book, a multi-volume set. The material is in
Chapter VII, “Religious Freedom after
1787”.)
I am not necessarily asking Mr. Harding to take back
anything he has written about this subject, but it would
seem that his treatment of it is decidedly superficial.
