Founding Fathers: Quotes on Religion

A demonstration of the type of misinformation perpetrated by Fundamentalists

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Here is a piece of fantasy writing about the religious inclinations of George Washington, written and posted as part of the wallbuilders.com site:

"Was George Washington a Christian? This is a question often asked today, and it arises from the efforts of those who seek to impeach Washington's character by portraying him as irreligious. Interestingly, Washington's own contemporaries did not question his Christianity but were thoroughly convinced of his devout faith."

In contrast to this unsubstantiated fabrication we have the written testimony of Thomas Jefferson:

Dr. Rush tells me that he had it from Asa Green that when the clergy addressed Genl. Washington on his departure from the govmt, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Xn religion and they thot they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However he observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the states when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of "the benign influence of the Christian religion".

I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that Genl. Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.

Thomas Jefferson, personal journal entry, February 1, 1800.

The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul L. Ford (Federal Edition) (New York and London, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1904-05). 12 vols -- VOLUME I: THE ANAS (1791-1806) AND VARIOUS CONVERSATIONS WITH THE PRESIDENT

The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages ...By Thomas Jefferson, Published 1859, H. W. Derby. (Pg. 198)

In the above piece we can clearly assess that Thomas Jefferson was under the impression that George Washington was not a Christian, as was Gouverneur Morris, Dr. Benjamin Rush and possibly Asa Green, along with the Clergy serving the region near the Capital.

This is in blatant contrast to the lie we previously read, "Interestingly, Washington's own contemporaries did not question his Christianity but were thoroughly convinced of his devout faith." Obviously, many of them did question it and many were convinced of his lack of Christian faith, and the writer of the Wallbuilders piece is well aware of this fact, but more than willing to lie about it.

Thomas Jefferson served as our first Secretary of State under George Washington and had known the man for many years.

Gouverneur Morris served with Washington as a Congressional (Continental Congress) envoy to Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War and remained friends with him thereafter. Morris wrote much of the Preamble to the Constitution, served as Ambassador to France under Washington and he himself was not a Christian.

Dr. Rush was possibly a moderate Christian with Unitarian and Deist sentiment, but he was no Fundamentalist, and he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was known to be an associate of Jefferson and Adams, two other Founding Fathers with little respect for the clergy or Fundamentalist Christian doctrine.

Asa Green was the first Chaplain to serve Congress, a position that the Founding Fathers fought over as many of them did not want clergy involved at all.

To completely dismiss the writings of Thomas Jefferson and others who knew Washington and were there in order to create this fantasy of a Christian Nation which these men fought so hard against is ridiculous.

Andrew Jackson, letter to the Synod of the Reformed Church of North America, 12 June 1832

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"I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government."

Andrew Jackson, letter to the Synod of the Reformed Church of North America, 12 June 1832, explaining his refusal of their request that he proclaim a "day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer.

Ed. It should be noted that Jackson was likely the first Bible believing Christian to hold the office of President of the United States, and that even his sometimes fervent religious beliefs did not interfere with his understanding of the intent of the Constitution concerning the separation of Church and State.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

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"The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America

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One other of these laws deserves particular notice. In private, every family were free to worship the gods in their own way ; and in public, though certain forms were required, yet there was not any penalty annexed to the omission of them, as the punishment of offenses in this matter was left to the offended god. This, probably, was the source of that wise and humane toleration which does so much honour to the Romans, and reflects disgrace on almost every Christian nation.

John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88)

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Thomas Jefferson, on the non-Christian origins of the Common Law

2007-07-03T17:58:00.000-07:00

For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons, on their settlement in England, and altered, from time to time, by proper legislative authority, from that, to the date of the Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or lex scripta. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century; but Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first Christian King of the Heptarchy, having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. If it ever, therefore, was adopted into the common law, it must have been between the introduction of Christianity and the date of the Magna Charta. But of the laws of this period, we have a tolerable collection, by Lambard and Wilkins; probably not perfect, but neither very defective; and if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents. These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it; but none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons, to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians; and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are able to find among them no such act of adoption; we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.

The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of
the United States, Published 1904, pages 90-91.

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Thomas Jefferson, diary entry concerning George Washington, February 1, 1800

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Dr. Rush tells me that he had it from Asa Green that when the clergy addressed Genl. Washington on his departure from the govmt, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Xn religion and they thot they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However he observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the states when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of the benign influence of the Christian religion.

I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that Genl. Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.

Thomas Jefferson, personal journal entry, February 1, 1800.

The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul L. Ford (Federal Edition) (New York and London, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1904-05). 12 vols -- VOLUME I: THE ANAS (1791-1806) AND VARIOUS CONVERSATIONS WITH THE PRESIDENT

The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages ...By Thomas Jefferson, Published 1859, H. W. Derby. (Pg. 198)

(Note: Gouverneur Morris, mentioned in the entry, was responsible for writing several sections of the Constitution, including the Preamble, worked directly with Washington at Valley Forge and at the Constitutional Convention, and acted as Ambassador to France during Washington's Presidency.)

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Notes on the Founding Fathers and the Separation of Church and State

2006-01-08T11:22:00.000-08:00

Some Christians are currently arguing that the concept of separating church and state was not in the minds of the founding fathers, and that it is a recent and pernicious doctrine that is the result of Supreme Court decisions in the 1950's and 60s.

This simply isn't true.

Separation of church and state is not something the Supreme Court invented in the 1950's and 60's. The phrase itself appears in a letter from President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, on Jan 1, 1802.

The Baptist Association had written to President Jefferson regarding a "rumor that a particular denomination was soon to be recognized as the national denomination." Jefferson responded to calm their fears by assuring them that the federal government would not establish any single denomination of Christianity as the National denomination. He wrote: "The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between Church and State."

Notice the phrasing in the U.S. Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 3:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Read the rest of the article at Theology.edu

John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America

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"Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88)

Text of the Preface at Constitution.org. Link to the Table of Contents of the entire work.

James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston

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"We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion Flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government."

James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

Read the letter at Constitution.org

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The Bill of Rights (1781)

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First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Transcript of The Bill of Rights at OurDocuments.gov. Transcript includes the original 12 Amendments submitted, the first two of which were not ratified.

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 16, 1814

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"Cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires."

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 16, 1814

Scanned letter at The Library of Congress

John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America

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"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."

John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88)

Text of the Preface at Constitution.org. Link to the Table of Contents of the entire work.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

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"One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

Scanned letter at The Library of Congress
Transcript at The Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library

The Constitution of the United States of America (1787)

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Article VI, Section 3: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Transcript of The Constitution of The United States of America at OurDocuments.gov

Thomas Jefferson, to John Adams, 1803

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"It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests."

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, August 22, 1813

Transcript at The Library of Congress
Scanned letter at The Library of Congress

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr

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"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

Scanned letter at The Library of Congress

James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments

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"Because the establishment in question is not necessary for the support of Civil Government. If it be urged as necessary for the support of Civil Government only as it is a means of supporting Religion, and it be not necessary for the latter purpose, it cannot be necessary for the former. If Religion be not within the cognizance of Civil Government how can its legal establishment be necessary to Civil Government? What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not. Such a Government will be best supported by protecting every Citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect, nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another."

James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1795

Read the entire text at The University of Chicago Press

George Washington to Edward Newenham

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"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes, that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far, that we should never again see their religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of Society."

George Washington to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792

Scanned letter at The Library of Congress
Transcript at The Library of Congress

George Washington to Tench Tilghman

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Mount Vernon, March 24, 1784.

Dear Sir: I am informed that a Ship with Palatines is gone up to Baltimore, among whom are a number of Trademen. I am a good deal in want of a House Joiner and Bricklayer, (who really understand their profession) and you would do me a favor by purchasing one of each, for me. I would not confine you to Palatines. If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans, Jews or Christian of an Sect, or they may be Atheists. I would however prefer middle aged, to young men. and those who have good countenances and good characters on ship board, to others who have neither of these to recommend them, altho, after all, the proof of the pudding must be in the eating. I do not limit you to a price, but will pay the purchase money on demand. This request will be in force 'till complied with, or countermanded, because you may not succeed at this moment, and have favourable ones here after to do it in. My best respects, in which Mrs. Washington joins, are presented to Mrs. Tilghman and Mrs. Carroll. and I am etc.

[H.S.P.]

George Washington to Tench Tilghman, March 24, 1784

Scanned letter at The Library of Congress
Transcript at The Library of Congress

James Madison, Detached Memoranda

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"Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation?

The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics & Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor."

James Madison, Detached Memoranda, believed to have been written circa 1817.

Transcript at The University of Chicago Press

James Madison to Edward Livingston

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"I observe with particular pleasure the view you have taken of the immunity of Religion from civil jurisdiction, in every case where it does not trespass on private rights or the public peace. This has always been a favorite principle with me; and it was not with my approbation, that the deviation from it took place in Cong[ress], when they appointed Chaplains, to be paid from the Nat[ional] Treasury. It would have been a much better proof to their Constituents of their pious feeling if the members had contributed for the purpose, a pittance from their own pockets. As the precedent is not likely to be rescinded, the best that can now be done, may be to apply to the Const[itution] the maxim of the law, de minimis non curat."

James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

Read the letter at Constitution.org

James Madison, Introducing the Bill of Rights

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"[The] civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner or on any pretext infringed."

James Madison, introducing the Bill of Rights at the First Federal Congress, Congressional Register, June 8, 1789

Library of Congress Exhibition
The Bill of Rights at the National Archives

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams

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"I had believed that [Connecticut was] the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other States a century ahead of them. ... I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.'

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, May 5, 1817

Scanned letter at The Library of Congress

Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moore

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"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, & ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man. They are still so in many countries & even in some of these United States. Even in 1783, we doubted the stability of our recent measures for reducing them to the footing of other useful callings. It now appears that our means were effectual."

Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moore, August 14, 1800

Scanned letter at The Library of Congress
Transcript at The Library of Congress

Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval

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"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."

Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, January 19, 1810

Scanned letter at The Library of Congress

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Dowse

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"I will never, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Dowse, April 19, 1803

Scanned letter at The Library of Congress

Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1801, First Inaugural

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"And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions."

Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1801, First Inaugural Address

Scanned draft at the Library of Congress
Transcript at The Library of Congress

Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry

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"I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."

Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799

Scanned letter at the Library of Congress
Transcript of letter at the Library of Congress

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 16, 1786

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"[W]e have solved by fair experiment the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 16, 1786

Scanned letter at The Library of Congress

Despite popular belief, founding fathers were not all Christians

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Was the United States founded on Christianity? Were our most respected and revered founding fathers devout Christians? The answer, despite the protestations of the religious right, is "no."

John Adams, our second president, explained that our country was "founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery." It's also worth mentioning that the U.S. Constitution, the legal foundation of our nation, is an entirely secular document; there is absolutely no mention of God, Jesus or Christianity.

The Treaty of Tripoli, written during the administration of George Washington, clearly indicates how uncontroversial our secular status was during the period of our founding. The treaty states unequivocally: "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." That ought to be clear enough for even a raving, evolution-denying theocrat to understand. Read aloud on the floor of the Senate, the treaty was unanimously ratified, without debate or dissension, and signed into law in 1797 by President John Adams.

The Rev. Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister and historian, lamented in an 1831 sermon, "The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels." Wilson's hyperbole aside, many of our best-known founders were highly influenced by the Enlightenment, and were Deists, not traditional Christians. In fact, several founders had contempt for central myths of Christianity, and many shared a profound concern about the tendency of organized religion to become tyrannical and malevolent.

Founding father Thomas Jefferson, our third and arguably most brilliant president, made his overall opinion of Christianity clear in a letter to John Adams: "the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" (the Goddess Minerva sprang forth, fully grown, from Jupiter's brain).

Jefferson considered the supernatural aspects of Christianity (trinity, virgin birth, resurrection, etc.) as equivalent to the ridiculous and primitive beliefs of ancient mythology, and was offended by the rampant absurdity within the New Testament. He was, however, impressed by the moral philosophy of Jesus. Jefferson wrote of the gospels, "I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism." This conflict drove Jefferson to the pinnacle of blasphemy; he gutted the Bible. Jefferson sought to distill the agreeable moral insights of Jesus by "abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried," separating the "diamond from the dunghill."

With razor blade and paste, Jefferson crafted a version of the Bible that wasn't abhorrent to his rational mind. Consequently, the "Jefferson Bible" contains no reference to divinity, angels, miracles or virgin birth; it ends without any mention of resurrection.

Another founding father, Thomas Paine, a radical pamphleteer who greatly influenced and aided the American Revolution with his potent writing, was a harsh and outspoken critic of Christianity.

The State News - www.statenews.com

Our Godless Constitution

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(The Nation) This column from The Nation was written by Brooke Allen.

"It is hard to believe that George Bush has ever read the works of George Orwell, but he seems, somehow, to have grasped a few Orwellian precepts. 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.

Our Constitution makes no mention whatever of God. The omission was too obvious to have been anything but deliberate, in spite of Alexander Hamilton's flippant responses when asked about it: According to one account, he said that the new nation was not in need of "foreign aid"; according to another, he simply said "we forgot." But as Hamilton's biographer Ron Chernow points out, Hamilton never forgot anything important.

In the eighty-five essays that make up The Federalist, God is mentioned only twice (both times by Madison, who uses the word, as Gore Vidal has remarked, in the "only Heaven knows" sense). In the Declaration of Independence, He gets two brief nods: a reference to "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God," and the famous line about men being "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." More blatant official references to a deity date from long after the founding period: "In God We Trust" did not appear on our coinage until the Civil War, and "under God" was introduced into the Pledge of Allegiance during the McCarthy hysteria in 1954 [see Elisabeth Sifton, "The Battle Over the Pledge," April 5, 2004].

In 1797 our government concluded a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary," now known simply as the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:

"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 tranquillity of Musselmen -- and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan 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."

This document was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was then sent to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth pointing out that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required by the Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate's history. There is no record of debate or dissent. The text of the treaty was printed in full in the Philadelphia Gazette and in two New York papers, but there were no screams of outrage, as one might expect today.

The Founding Fathers were not religious men, and they fought hard to erect, in Thomas Jefferson's words, "a wall of separation between church and state." John Adams opined that if they were not restrained by legal measures, Puritans -- the fundamentalists of their day -- would "whip and crop, and pillory and roast." The historical epoch had afforded these men ample opportunity to observe the corruption to which established priesthoods were liable, as well as "the impious presumption of legislators and rulers," as Jefferson wrote, "civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time."

If we define a Christian as a person who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ, then it is safe to say that some of the key Founding Fathers were not Christians at all. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine were deists -- that is, they believed in one Supreme Being but rejected revelation and all the supernatural elements of the Christian Church; the word of the Creator, they believed, could best be read in Nature. John Adams was a professed liberal Unitarian, but he, too, in his private correspondence seems more deist than Christian.

George Washington and James Madison also leaned toward deism, although neither took much interest in religious matters. Madison believed that "religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize." He spoke of the "almost fifteen centuries" during which Christianity had been on trial: "What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." If Washington mentioned the Almighty in a public address, as he occasionally did, he was careful to refer to Him not as "God" but with some nondenominational moniker like "Great Author" or "Almighty Being." It is interesting to note that the Father of our Country spoke no words of a religious nature on his deathbed, although fully aware that he was dying, and did not ask for a man of God to be present; his last act was to take his own pulse, the consummate gesture of a creature of the age of scientific rationalism.

Tom Paine, a polemicist rather than a politician, could afford to be perfectly honest about his religious beliefs, which were baldly deist in the tradition of Voltaire: "I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.... I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church." This is how he opened The Age of Reason, his virulent attack on Christianity. In it he railed against the "obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness" of the Old Testament, "a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." The New Testament is less brutalizing but more absurd, the story of Christ's divine genesis a "fable, which for absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by any thing that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients." He held the idea of the Resurrection in especial ridicule: Indeed, "the wretched contrivance with which this latter part is told, exceeds every thing that went before it." Paine was careful to contrast the tortuous twists of theology with the pure clarity of deism. "The true deist has but one Deity; and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in every thing moral, scientifical, and mechanical."

Paine's rhetoric was so fervent that he was inevitably branded an atheist. Men like Franklin, Adams and Jefferson could not risk being tarred with that brush, and in fact Jefferson got into a good deal of trouble for continuing his friendship with Paine and entertaining him at Monticello. These statesmen had to be far more circumspect than the turbulent Paine, yet if we examine their beliefs it is all but impossible to see just how theirs differed from his."

Read the entire article at CBSNews.com

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio Spafford

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"You judge truly that I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying & slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain. I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East to the Saints of the West, and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance of those on whom their interested duperies were to be plaid off. Their sway in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develope itself. If it does, they excite against it the public opinion which they command, & by little, but incessant and teasing persecutions, drive it from among them. Their present emigrations to the Western country are real flights from persecution, religious & political, but the abandonment of the country by those who wish to enjoy freedom of opinion leaves the despotism over the residue more intense, more oppressive. They are now looking to the flesh pots of the South and aiming at foothold there by their missionary teachers. They have lately come forward boldly with their plan to establish " a qualified religious instructor over every thousand souls in the US." And they seem to consider none as qualified but their own sect."

Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, January 10, 1816

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Thomas Jefferson, to Baron von Humboldt

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"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."

Thomas Jefferson, to Baron von Humboldt, December 6, 1813

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Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law

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"...If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that is pleasing to him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

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Thomas Paine, Answer to a Friend

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"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case."

"You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New."

Thomas Paine, Answer to a Friend regarding The Age of Reason, Paris, May 12, 1797

Thomas Paine, Answer to a friend

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"It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No."

"Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?"

Thomas Paine, Answer to a friend regarding The Age of Reason, Paris, May 12, 1797

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

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"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system."

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794, 1796)

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Thomas Paine, Of The Religion of Deism

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"As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priestcraft supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real sin."

Thomas Paine, Of The Religion of Deism Compared With the Christian Religion, Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, edited by Daniel Edwin Wheeler, 1908, Vincent Parke & Co., New York.

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Thomas Paine, Of The Religion of Deism

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"Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian Religion. It is free from all those invented and torturing articles that shock our reason or injure our humanity, and with which the Christian religion abounds. Its creed is pure, and sublimely simple. It believes in God, and there it rests."

Thomas Paine, Of The Religion of Deism Compared With the Christian Religion, Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, edited by Daniel Edwin Wheeler, 1908, Vincent Parke & Co., New York.

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Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man

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"The inquisition in Spain does not proceed from the religion originally professed, but from this mule-animal, engendered between the church and the state. The burnings in Smithfield proceeded from the same heterogeneous production; and it was the regeneration of this strange animal in England afterwards, that renewed rancour and irreligion among the inhabitants, and that drove the people called Quakers and Dissenters to America. Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is alway the strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity. In America, a catholic priest is a good citizen, a good character, and a good neighbour; an episcopalian minister is of the same description: and this proceeds independently of the men, from there being no law-establishment in America."

Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1791-92)

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Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

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"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794, 1796)

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Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

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"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, not by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church."

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794, 1796)

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Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

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"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794, 1796)

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James Madison, letter to Robert Walsh

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"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State."

James Madison, letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819, Letters and Other writings of James Madison, in Four Volumes, Published by Order of Congress. VOL. III, J. B. Lippincott & Co. Philadelphia, (1865), pp 121-126.

James Madison to Rev. Adams

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"Whilst I thus frankly express my view of the subject presented in your sermon, I must do you the justice to observe that you very ably maintained yours. I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions & doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinance of the Govt. from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, & protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others."

James Madison, "James Madison on Religious Liberty", edited by Robert S. Alley

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James Madison to William Bradford

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"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded project."

James Madison, Letter to William Bradford, 1 Apr. 1774

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James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments

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"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1795

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James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments

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"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?"

James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1795

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Benjamin Franklin: Toleration in Old and New England

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" If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England."

Benjamin Franklin, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin: London, 1757 - 1775

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Benjamin Franklin in a letter to Richard Price

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"When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig'd to call for the help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Richard Price. October 9, 1790.

Read the text of this letter at the University of Chicago Press

Benjamin Franklin: His Autobiography

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"My parents had early given me religious impressions, and brought me through my childhood piously in the Dissenting way. But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns of several points, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle’s Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."

Benjamin Franklin. (1706–1790). His Autobiography.

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Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, October 28, 1813

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"The law for religious freedom, which made a part of this system, having put down the aristocracy of the clergy, and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind, and those of entails and descents nurturing an equality of condition among them, this on education would have raised the mass of the people to the high ground of moral respectability necessary to their own safety, and to orderly government; and would have completed the great object of qualifying them to select the veritable aristoi, for the trusts of government, to the exclusion of the pseudalists; and the same Theognis who has furnished the epigraphs of your two letters, assures us that "." Although this law has not yet been acted on but in a small and inefficient degree, it is still considered as before the legislature, with other bills of the revised code, not yet taken up, and I have great hope that some patriotic spirit will, at a favorable moment, call it up, and make it the key-stone of the arch of our government."

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, October 28, 1813

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Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, September 26, 1814

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"our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our god alone. I enquire after no man's and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friend's or our foe's, are exactly the right."

Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, September 26, 1814

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Thomas Jefferson, from his autobiography

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"The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it's protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author 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 it's protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination."

Thomas Jefferson, from his autobiography, 1821, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, 1802

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"I know it will give great offence to the New England clergy; but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them."

Thomas Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, 1802, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom

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"...our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry"

Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julron P. Boyd, 1950

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Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom

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"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."

Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julron P. Boyd, 1950

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Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom

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"WE the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julron P. Boyd, 1950

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Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Jefferson the President: First Term 1801-1805, Dumas Malon, Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1970, p. 191

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Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association on Jan. 1, 1802

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"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association on Jan. 1, 1802, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson

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