With the rise of evangelical Christian nationalism and historically racist white nationalism in the top levels of American government and politics, the illegitimate election of Trump and his subsequent administration, through a Putin and Comey influenced skewing of the Electoral College vote against the overwhelming majority vote of the People, heralds in a new era of a Post-Truth America. Where alternative facts (demonstrable lies) and revisionist history (distorted history to fit a desired belief) are daily pushed upon the minds of citizens, as if somehow they are truth manifested.
“What would the Founders of our nation think about a Post-Truth America? Would their view of what America is expected to be prove similar to how we view the United States today?… It is especially important, now, to learn the factual and verifiable history of our nation’s Founders. To understand what they believed and envisioned for the United States of America when founding this Republic. Education is critical to restoring a functional representative democracy within America, especially if we intend to continue the democratic government experiment that has been provided to us.” – Joseph T Farkasdi
With this page, it is my intent to share significant quotes and short biographies of most of our nation’s Founders. Below, I share the history and beliefs of the fifteen U.S. Founders who most influenced constitutional structure and ideology for the United States of America during its founding. The more I study the actual verifiable history of this nation and compare this with the pervasive popularized myths being shared about our national Founders and our nation’s history, it has become very clear to me that American citizens need to have an honest education about American history and, especially, about the Founders of this nation and their beliefs. May this page here help to facilitate this. Ignorance about the reason for this country’s existence within the world of human nations is a threat to the very survival of our nation’s “experiment in democracy.”
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Go directly to a specific founder:
James Wilson – Thomas Paine – Ethan Allen – Abigail Adams
Richard Allen – John Adams – Benjamin Franklin – Thomas Jefferson
Samuel Adams – Alexander Hamilton – John Jay – Joel Barlow
Roger Sherman – George Washington – James Madison – Benjamin Rush
How many Founders believed the U.S. is a “Christian” nation?
What were the Founders’ views about the rights of Muslims?
Does the 2nd Amendment encourage civil regulations of firearms?
What would the Founders think about our nationalist Muslim ban?
Would you like to know what the Founders thought about Religious Liberty in civil matters?
The quick historical facts about our nation’s Founders – Quick Reference
On what date in 1776 did the Continental Congress vote to establish a new country called the United States of America?
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Meet U.S. Founder James Wilson:
“I have occasion to describe what I meant by a democracy; and I think I termed it, that government in which the people retain the supreme power, and exercise it either collectively or by representation.” – at Pennsylvania Ratification Convention, November 26, 1787
“Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.” – in Of the Natural Rights of Individuals, 1790
“In a state of natural liberty, every one is allowed to act according to his own inclination, provided he transgress not those limits, which are assigned to him by the law of nature: in a state of civil liberty, he is allowed to act according to his inclination, provided he transgress not those limits, which are assigned to him by the municipal law.” – in Of the Natural Rights of Individuals, 1790
“The consequence is, that the happiness of society is the first law of every government. This rule is founded on the law of nature: it must control every political maxim: it must regulate the legislature itself. The people have a right to insist that this rule be observed; and are entitled to demand a moral security that the legislature will observe it. If they have not the first, they are slaves; if they have not the second, they are every moment exposed to slavery.” – in Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, 1774
“I speak from principle fortified by fact. Let the constitution of the United States — let that of Pennsylvania be examined from the beginning to the end. No right is conferred, no obligation is laid on any, which is not laid or conferred on every, citizen of the commonwealth or Union — I think I may defy the world to produce a single exception to the truth of this remark.” – in Of the Natural Rights of Individuals, 1790-1791
James Wilson, United States Founder, 1742-1798, born into Presbyterian family in Scotland, was educated in several colleges in Europe, studied 18th century Scottish Enlightenment (the belief in using human reason to improve society and rejecting any religious or governing authority not justified by human reasoning), emigrated to British America in 1766 and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, received a degree and was a professor at the Academy and College of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania), became a successful lawyer in 1766, argued publicly that British Parliament had no authority over American colonies because the colonies had no representation in their government, was a Colonel in the Pennsylvania State Militia during the American Revolution, was a member of the Continental Congress in 1776 advocating for independence, signed the Declaration of Independence, was one of the framers of the U.S. constitution, supported election by popular Direct Vote of the People, proposed the Three-Fifths Compromise to win Southern States to the U.S. Constitution, was deeply financially invested in American land acquisition, nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by George Washington in 1789.
#JamesWilson #FoundingFather #United States
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Meet U.S. Founder Thomas Paine:
“A long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” – in Common Sense, 1776
“The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian World hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones.” – in Common Sense, 1776
“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” – in Dissertation on First Principles of Government, July 1795
“The priests of the present day, profess to believe it. They gain their living by it, and they exclaim against something they call infidelity. I will define what it is. HE THAT BELIEVES IN THE STORY OF CHRIST IS AN INFIDEL TO GOD… My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good, and endeavouring to make their fellow-mortals happy, for this is the only way in which we can serve God, will be happy hereafter.” – in Age of Reason, 1794-95, 1807
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” – in American Crisis, December 1776
“Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither they have fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster.” – in Common Sense, 1776
“Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.” – in Common Sense, January 1776
“You have too much at stake to hesitate. You ought not to think an hour upon the matter, but to spring to action at once… Now our time and turn is come, and perhaps the finishing stroke is reserved for us. When we look back on the dangers we have been saved from, and reflect on the success we have been blessed with, it would be sinful either to be idle or to despair.” – in American Crisis, September 1777
“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.” – in American Crisis, March 1778
“We are now really another people, and cannot again go back to ignorance and prejudice. The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.” – in A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal on the Affairs of North America, August 21, 1782
“There is no possibility, neither is there any term to express the supposition by, of the mind unknowing any thing it already knows; and therefore all attempts on the part of (…),”… (his was a reference to England but, in our 21st century, fill in the religious, nationalist, hard-right group of your choice) …”fitted to the former habit of America, and on the expectation of their applying now, will be like persuading a seeing man to become blind, and a sensible one to turn an idiot. The first of which is unnatural and the other impossible.” – in A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal on the Affairs of North America, August 21, 1782
“Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.” – in Rights of Man, 1791
Thomas Paine, United States Founder, 1737-1809, born into a Quaker/Anglican family in England, received an early childhood education when most children did not, embraced religious Deism of 18th century Europe (the universe is formed by a Creator, is governed by natural laws, and rejects supernatural theistic myths) and beliefs in “natural justice”, was briefly a schoolteacher in London, became an anti-monarchy pro-republican advocate, emigrated to British America by encouragement of Benjamin Franklin, became a citizen of Pennsylvania, studied the nature-based democratic lifestyle of the Iroquois Indians, was a prolific and prominent Colonial American writer encouraging the European Enlightenment anti-monarchy anti-religion free-thought among America’s budding rebellious leaders, was a staunch abolitionist seeking the emancipation of American slaves, instigated the American and French Revolutions with his writings for an egalitarian civic republicanism form of government (a People’s government).
#ThomasPaine #FoundingFather #United States
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Meet U.S. Founder Ethan Allen:
“While we are under the tyranny of Priests, it will ever be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith.” – in Reason the Only Oracle of Man, 1784
“Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason.” – in Reason the Only Oracle of Man, 1784
“In those parts of the world where learning and science has prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue.” – in Reason the Only Oracle of Man, 1784
“Who would imagine that the Deity conducts his providence similar to the detestable despots of the world? Oh horrible most horrible impeachment of Divine Goodness!” – in Reason the Only Oracle of Man, 1784
Ethan Allen, United States Founder, 1738-1789, born into an English Puritan family in Connecticut, British colonial America, in youth often got in trouble with the law, helped form and run the “Green Mountain Boys” militia in 1770, fought in the Revolutionary War, captured by the British and imprisoned until a prisoner exchange was made in 1778, became a “war hero” as a result, published in 1785 a religious work he’d worked on in his youth which denounced Christianity, established churches, and the powers of priesthoods, and encouraging Deism and naturalist views of humans as freely acting in a natural world as a replacement to religion.
#EthanAllen #FoundingFather #UnitedStates
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Meet U.S. Founder Abigail Adams:
“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.” – in letter to husband John Adams, Mar 31, 1776
“When will Mankind be convinced that true Religion is from the Heart, between Man and his creator, and not the imposition of Man or creeds and tests?” – in letter to Louisa Adams, January 3, 1818
“I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, ‘Give, give.'” – in letter to John Adams, November 27, 1775
“Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could.” – in letter to husband John Adams, Mar 31, 1776
“If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.” – in letter to John Adams, August 14, 1776
“I acknowledge myself a Unitarian – Believing that the Father alone, is the supreme God, and that Jesus Christ derived his Being, and all his powers and honors from the Father … There is not any reasoning which can convince me, contrary to my senses, that three is one, and one three.” – in letter to John Quincy Adams, May 5, 1816
“The Boy is a Freeman as much as any of the young Men, and merely because his Face is Black, is he to be denied instruction?… I have not thought it any disgrace to my self to take him into my parlour and teach him both to read and write.” – in letter to John Adams, February 13, 1797
Abigail Adams, United States Founder, 1744-1818, second First Lady of the U.S., closest advisor to and wife of John Adams, born into a Unitarian British American family, advocated for Unitarian thought (the anti-trinity belief in God as one entity and Jesus as a ‘fully human’ God-inspired teacher/Savior), engaged in written discourses about government and politics with John Adams and about America’s future direction, believed slavery to be evil and a threat to a democratic republic, and staunchly advocated for women’s rights even at the threat of political revolution against male tyranny, became First Lady of the United States in 1797.
#AbigailAdams #FoundingMother #FirstLady #UnitedStates
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Meet U.S. Founder Richard Allen:
“If you love your children, if you love your country, if you love the God of love, clear your hands from slaves, burden not your children or your country with them.” – in An Address To Those Who Keep Slaves and Uphold the Practice, 1794
“We who have been born and nurtured on this soil, we, whose habits, manners, and customs are the same in common with other Americans, can never consent to – be the bearers of the redress offered by that Society to that much afflicted.” – in Address to the Free People of Colour of These United States, 1830
“Whereas our ancestors (not of choice) were the first successful cultivators of the wilds of America, we their descendants feel ourselves entitled to participate in the blessings of her luxuriant soil.” – in A Voice from Philadelphia, January, 1817
Richard Allen, United States Founder, 1760-1831, born into British colonial America slavery and freed after his owner renounced slave ownership, became a Methodist minister and founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), fought racial oppression by preaching abolition and education through action, with other free African-American leaders started the Negro Convention Movement to begin the building of a black community in the United States.
#BlackHistoryMonth #RichardAllen #FoundingFather #United States
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Meet U.S. Founder John Adams:
“Of the independence of the United States: a memorable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined in future history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind.” – in a letter to John Whitney, June 7, 1826
“I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in such abhorrence, that I have never owned a negro or any other slave, though… it has cost me thousands of dollars for the labor and subsistence of free men, which I might have saved by the purchase of negroes at times when they were very cheap.” in a letter to Robert Evans, June 8, 1819
“Since the promulgation of Christianity, the two greatest systems of tyranny that have sprung from this original, are the canon and the feudal law… Let us tenderly and kindly cherish therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.” – in A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
“The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts.” – in a letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” – during the Boston Massacre trial, 1770
“A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” – in a letter to Abigail Adams, July 7, 1775
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.” – in a letter to John Taylor, December 17, 1814
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” – in a letter to Jonathan Jackson, October 2, 1780
“The people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.” – in Thoughts on Government, 1776
“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved – the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!” – in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, September 3, 1816
“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” – often attributed to John Adams because, as President, he signed into law the Treaty of Tripoli, which was ratified unanimously without debate by the Senate in 1797, but was negotiated and drafted by Joel Barlow in 1796.
John Adams, United States Founder, 1735-1826, born into a Congregationalist Massachusetts family, was a cousin of Samuel Adams, was given a formal early childhood education despite his modest Puritan upbringing (included learning Latin, speechmaking, logical deduction, and mathematics), educated at Harvard where he was influenced by religious Deism, used deistic terms but advocated “theistic rationalism” and an evolving revelatory Christianity, eventually accepted the Unitarian religion of his closest political advisor – his wife, was an abolitionist, earned a Master of Arts from Harvard and became a lawyer, staunchly supported the right of Americans to a trial by jury, was a delegate to the 1st and 2nd Continental Congress, supported and signed Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, was a diplomat to France, Holland, and Great Britain, and was the nation’s first Vice President and the nation’s second President.
#JohnAdams #FoundingFather #UnitedStates
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Meet U.S. Founder Benjamin Franklin:
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – in Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755
“Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.” – in The New-England Courant, July 9, 1722
“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.” – in a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
“Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God” – proposed motto for The Great Seal of the United States, August 1776
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” … “Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.” – in Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1735
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” – in The New-England Courant, July 9, 1722
“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.” – in a letter to the London Packet, June 3, 1772
“In the Affairs of this World Men are saved, not by Faith, but by the Lack of it.” – in Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1735
“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature… To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted.” – in Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, November 9, 1789
“I think a general Government necessary for us,… that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.” – written to the Federal Convention, September 17, 1787
Benjamin Franklin, United States Founder, 1706-1790, born into a Puritan Massachusetts family, kept many of the Puritan beliefs on voluntary service to community but rejected the supernatural theistic aspects the religion, made a lot of visits to different countries in Europe throughout his life, was self-described as a deist but was more anti-clerical in religious leaning (meaning, a secularist who believed religion is a personal belief system and has no place in civil governance), was a “polymath” (author, scientist, inventor, statesman, and more), had owned slaves but became an abolitionist, advocated for an egalitarian democracy, signed the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, was a diplomat to France and experienced French “Enlightenment” beliefs, created one of the first volunteer firefighting companies, and founded the American Philosophical Society for scientific inquiries.
#BenjaminFranklin #FoundingFather #UnitedStates
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Meet U.S. Founder Thomas Jefferson:
“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 civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.” – in a letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.” – in a letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
“Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.” – in a letter to Garret Van Meter, April 27, 1781
“The legitimate powers of government extend to only such acts as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” – in Notes on the State of Virginia, 1784
“The will of the people… is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.” – in a letter to the Citizens of Columbia, South Carolina, March 23, 1801
“Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature… the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men.” – in Constitutionality of Residence Bill of 1790, July 15, 1790
“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 legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions.” – in a letter to the Danbury Baptists, January 1, 1802
“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.” – in a letter to the Danbury Baptists, January 1, 1802
“Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.” – in Notes on the State of Virginia, 1784
“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 the love of God.” – in a letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814
“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal 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.” – in a letter to Peter Carr, his nephew, August 10, 1787.
“It is believed that the most effectual means of preventing (tyranny) would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large,… and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or accidental condition of circumstance.” – in Preamble to a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, Fall 1778
“Some are whigs, liberals, democrats, call them what you please. Others are tories, serviles, aristocrats, (etc). The latter fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society; the former consider the people as the safest depository of power… and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent.” – in a letter to William Short, January 8, 1825
Thomas Jefferson, United States Founder, 1743-1826, was born into an Episcopalian family in Virginia, British colonial America, was influenced by Deist writers in college years and renounced traditional Christianity and the “Trinity”, created the Jefferson Bible (the life and teachings of the “human” Jesus, minus all supernatural references), was anti-clerical in religious leaning (like Benjamin Franklin, meaning a secularist who believed religion is a personal belief system and has no place in civil governance), paraphrased good friend Philip Mazzei’s concept of “all men” being “created equal” under natural laws and being “endowed” with certain “unalienable Rights” (Mazzei was an Italian ‘Enlightenment’ activist), was a slaveowner in his business practices despite his public liberal beliefs and occasional stances for freeing slaves, wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence, drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, was the second Vice President and third President of the United States, and founded the University of Virginia as an academic education center free of church influences and with expanded curriculum.
#ThomasJefferson #FoundingFather #UnitedStates
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Meet U.S. Founder Samuel Adams:
“How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!” in a letter to John Pitts, January 21, 1776
“If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin” – in a letter to James Warren, October 24, 1780
“While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.” – in a letter to James Warren, February 12, 1779
“I firmly believe that the benevolent Creator designed the republican Form of Government for Man.” – in a statement made on April 14, 1785
“In the supposed state of nature, all men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator. They are imprinted by the finger of God on the heart of man. Thou shall do no injury to thy neighbor, is the voice of nature and reason, and it is confirmed by written revelation.” – in a speech to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, January 17, 1794
“Every one knows that the exercise of military power is forever dangerous to civil rights; and we have had recent instances of violences that have been offer’d to private subjects.” – in the Boston Gazette, February 27, 1769
“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.” – in a letter to James Warren, February 12, 1779
“The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.” – in The Boston Gazette, October 14, 1771
Samuel Adams, United States Founder, 1722-1803, was born into a Puritan family in Boston, Massachusetts, British colonial America, was second cousin to President John Adams, was a member of the Old South Meeting House (the meeting house for the Boston Tea Party), graduated from Harvard College in 1743 with a master’s degree in politics, began his public life as a colonial tax collector (but failed in collecting taxes), became a political member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and argued strongly for protection of constitutional rights, took an active role in the events that led to the Boston Tea Party of 1773 (a response to the British imposed sugar, stamp, and Townshend, and tea taxation acts) which only led to more punitive British taxation, the subsequent American Revolutionary War pushed him politically towards supporting American independence, advocated for independence as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, publicly praised Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” writings, signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, advocated for “free education” for boys and girls in Boston, was a Massachusetts Senator and its fourth Governor.
#SamuelAdams #FoundingFather #United States
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Meet U.S. Founder Alexander Hamilton:
“The nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.” – in a letter to the Daily Advertiser, February 21, 1797
“Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.” – statement made at the Federal Convention on June 26, 1787
“Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.” – in The Federalist, No. 15, December 1, 1787
“In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.” – in the Federalist, No. 1, October 27, 1787
“On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty… and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people.” – in the Federalist, No. 1, October 27, 1787
“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” – in The Farmer Refuted, February 23, 1775
“The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution… whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.” – in The Federalist, No. 78, June 14, 1788
“Let (every man) beware of an obstinate adherence to party; let him reflect that the object upon which he is to decide is not a particular interest of the community, but the very existence of the nation.” – in The Federalist, No. 85, May 28, 1788
Alexander Hamilton, United States Founder, 1755-1804, was born to a British-French Protestant unmarried woman in the British West Indies, as a child was being raised as an orthodox evangelical Presbyterian, as a child was surrounded by a large Jewish community in the Caribbean and received educational tutoring by a Jewish woman (learned ancient Hebrew) and self-supplemented this education with library books (having being rejected on his mother’s not married pregnancy for education in church school), emigrated to British colonial America in 1772 and got further grammar school education in New Jersey, became an outspoken supporter for the American patriots while at King’s College, joined the Corsican militia during the American Revolutionary War, lost his religiosity during the war and embraced “a conventional liberal with theistic inclinations” (Gordon Wood) religious stance (believed by historians to have been swayed by Deist thinking), recruited black troops for the Revolutionary army (promising freedom for slaves who join) and was an active abolitionist, founded an anti-slavery organization in New York, became an aide for George Washington, was appointed to the Congress of the Confederation in 1782, practiced law in New York and founded the Bank of New York, credited for establishing the Federalist political party and the U.S. Coast Guard, drafted a resolution to the Article of Confederation that included a separation of powers between Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, signed the United States Constitution, became the Secretary of the Treasury which led to the establishment of U.S. coinage and a national bank, was the first American politician to become involved in a sex scandal.
#AlexanderHamilton #FoundingFather #UnitedStates
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Meet U.S. Founder John Jay:
“I consider knowledge to be the soul of a republic, and as the weak and wicked are generally in alliance, as much care should be taken to diminish the number of the former as of that latter. Education is the way to do this, and nothing should be left undone to afford all ranks of people that means of obtaining a proper degree of it at a cheap and easy rate.” – to Benjamin Rush, March 21, 1785
“To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people, each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.” – in The Federalist, No. 2, October 31, 1787
“It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honor of the States, as we as justice and humanity, in my opinion loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.” – in a letter to R. Lushington, March 15, 1786
“Whether taxation should extend only to property, or only to income, are points on which opinions have not been uniform. I am inclined to think that both should not be taxed.” – in regard to taxation, State of New York, 1777
“The people are the sovereign of this country.” – in Chisholm v. Georgia, 1793
“The moral or natural law was given by the Sovereign of the universe to all mankind; with them it was coeval, and with them it will be coexistent. Being founded by infinite wisdom and goodness on essential right, which never varies, it can require no amendment nor alteration.” – in a letter to John Murray, April 15, 1818
“Real Christians will abstain from violating the rights of others, and therefore will not provoke war. Almost all nations have peace or war at the will and pleasure of rulers whom they do not elect, and who are not always wise or virtuous. Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” – in a letter to John Murray, October 12, 1816
Attributed to John Jay, but is not found in any of the historical documents written by John Jay or others of the time period – therefore it is doubtful John Jay actually said this (even though he is popularly quoted as having said it): “No human society has ever been able to maintain both order and freedom, both cohesiveness and liberty apart from the moral precepts of the Christian Religion. Should our Republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance, we will then, be surely doomed.”
John Jay was a very smart man, as evidenced by being a Chief Justice, and also a very religious man. This traditional religiosity made him unique and a minority among the Founders. Though it is highly unlikely that he made the unsupported attributed statement above, if he indeed did, then (though intelligent) this would have made him a bit naïve about history. The U.S. in his time had no history yet to validate such a statement, and there have been many non-Christian nations within history (that were precursor democracies to modern democratic nations) that lasted for hundreds to a thousand of years maintaining “order and freedom” and “cohesiveness and liberty”. Whereas, in contrast, NO Christian nation (whether monarchical or theocratic) since the rise of Christianity has managed to have a history that can make such a boast (look closely at the history of Europe). The United States, though Christian religion dominated, is a pluralistic democracy based in freedom of any religion and a separation of church and state (religion and civil).
John Jay, United States Founder, 1745-1829, was born into a wealthy French Protestant merchant family in New York, British colonial America, was given an education by an Anglican priest and by homeschooling, graduated King’s College and went into law and politics, had a Whig political stance in early life, became a Patriot advancing the revolutionary cause, was raised in a slaveholder family but became an active abolitionist after the Declaration of Independence, drafted a New York state law for emancipation in 1777 (it failed to pass, but passed in 1799 when he was Governor of New York), ran organized boycotts against businesses involved in the slave trade, acted as legal counsel for blacks kidnapped as slaves, was the 6th President of the Continental Congress, was a diplomat to Spain and was a negotiator on the Treaty of Paris, was a leader of the Federalist Party, was one of the few founders who believed the nation should be a “Christian nation” (in contrast to many of the Founders who espoused Deist beliefs and the belief that the United States must “not” be a Christian nation but, rather, a liberal democracy), appointed as 1st Chief Justice of the United States by George Washington, was the 2nd Governor of New York.
#JohnJay #FoundingFather #UnitedStates
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Meet U.S. Founder Joel Barlow:
“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 tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims).” – in Treaty of Tripoli, November 4, 1796, which he negotiated and drafted with a Muslim nation
“Ye, who pretend to your dark host was given
The lamp of life, the mystic keys of heaven;
Whose impious arts with magic spells began
When shades of ign’rance veil’d the race of man;
Who change, from age to age, the sly deceit
As Science beams, and Virtue learns the cheat;…
Freedom at last, with Reason in her train
Extends o’er earth her everlasting reign…”
– in The Conspiracy of Kings, 1792
“Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song
The force, the charm that to thy voice belong;
Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way,
To nerve my country with the patriot lay,
To teach all men where all their interest lies,
How rulers may be just and nations wise:
Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee,
Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee.”
– in The Columbiad, 1807
Joel Barlow, United States Founder, 1754-1812, was born into a fairly wealthy farming family in Connecticut, British colonial America, received an adhoc childhood education by a local minister mixed with daily farm chores, received additional education at Moor’s Indian School (Dartmouth) in 1772, entered into Yale College in 1778, demonstrated a strong affinity towards poetry, political philosophy, and science, believed that science was crucial to improving the human condition, published multiple poems throughout his life, was chaplain of the Third Massachusetts Brigade during the Revolutionary War (his chaplainship interests ended with this war), went into the writing and printing business, wrote The Vision of Columbus in 1787 which celebrates America’s future as an arts, science, and international commerce nation, had both prominent national and international leaders reading his works (George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Louis XVI of France), dabbled in real estate sales of American lands to Europeans and traveled to England and France, met many prominent writers of Europe (including Thomas Paine – a lifelong friend thereafter, William Blake, and Joseph Priestley – a prominent English scientist and Enlightenment rationalist), became a journalist and poet on social politics, supported the French Revolution, published an anti-slavery poem in 1778, started a very successful European-based shipping business, became a diplomat for the United States in 1795 and negotiated and drafted the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796 (unanimously approved by the U.S. Congress and signed by John Adams), returned to the United States in 1805 and continued publishing his liberal progressive writings, settled in Washington and regularly met with political leaders (Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, James Madison, etc.), published Prospectus of a National Institution in 1806 and The Columbiad in 1807.
#JoelBarlow #FoundingFather #UnitedStates
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Meet U.S. Founder Roger Sherman:
“If you suffer any man to govern you who is not strongly interested in supporting your privileges (legal rights), you will certainly lose them.” – in The Countryman, November 22, 1787
“On the subject of a bill of rights, the liberty of the press, rights of conscience, rights of taxation and election, trials in the vicinity, freedom of speech, trial by jury, and a standing army… guard such privileges by the strongest expressions… if you leave the legislative and executive power in the hands of those who are or may be disposed to deprive you of them, you are but slaves.” – in The Countryman, November 22, 1787
“If the president alone was vested with the power of appointing all officers, and was left to select a council for himself, he would be liable to be deceived by flatterers and pretenders to patriotism, who would have no motive but their own emolument. They would wish to extend the powers of the executive to increase their own importance; and, however upright he might be in his intentions, there would be great danger of his being misled, even to the subversion of the constitution, or, at least, to introduce such evils as to interrupt the harmony of the government, and deprive him of the confidence of the people.” – in a written document to John Adams, July 1789
“It appears to me the senate is the most important branch in the government, for aiding and supporting the executive, securing the rights of the individual states, the government of the United States, and the liberties of the people.” – in a written document to John Adams, July 1789
Roger Sherman, United States Founder, 1721-1793, born into a Congregationalist family in Massachusetts, British colonial America, was self-educated beyond grammar school with the help of a Harvard educated minister, opened a town store, became a Connecticut lawyer and politician, was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree at Yale College, was a professor of religion, never owned a slave and believed that slavery was a threat to the Constitution, was a Mayor, Diplomat, Congressman, and Senator for Connecticut, signed the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and United States Constitution.
#RogerSherman #FoundingFather #United States
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Meet U.S. Founder George Washington:
“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.” – in Circular to the States, June 8, 1783
“The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.” – in Presidential Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all… It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.” – in Presidential Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” – in a letter to the Officers of the Army, March 15, 1783
“I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.” – in a letter to the United Baptist Churches of Virginia, May 1789
“There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.” – in his First Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, January 8, 1790
“We should not look back (upon the past) unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.” – in a letter to John Armstrong, March 26, 1781
“The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.” – in an address to the Continental Army, August 2, 1776
“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.” – in a letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, August 18, 1790
“For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.” – in a letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, August 18, 1790
George Washington, United States Founder, 1732-1799, born into an Anglican English modestly-wealthy plantation owning family in Virginia, British colonial America, as a child received an ad-hoc elementary education, became a land surveyor early in life, joined the military and served in the French and Indian War (these colonial wars over First People Nations’ land between Britain and France was a violent contest to acquire more of the American continent), was a slave owner who gained wealth through his wife’s and his slaveholdings and only made a move towards emancipation of some of his slaves upon his death (by will decree, which demonstrates he knew it is wrong to own slaves), was a Virginia diplomat to the First and Second Continental Congress, signed the Continental Association and the United States Constitution, was a senior officer and Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, was the 1st President of the United States.
#GeorgeWashington #FoundingFather #UnitedStates
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Meet U.S. Founder James Madison:
“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.” – in a letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822
“The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.” – in a letter to George Thompson, June 30, 1825
“The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people.” – in Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785
“If “all men are by nature equally free and independent,” all men are to be considered as entering into Society on equal conditions; as relinquishing no more, and therefore retaining no less, one than another, of their natural rights.” – in Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785
“Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against God, not against man.” – in Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785
“Because Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body… Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion.” – in Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785
“The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated.” – in a speech to the Virginia Constitutional Convention, December 2, 1829
“The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.” – in The Federalist, No. 49, February 2, 1788
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” – in a speech at the Virginia Convention, June 6, 1788
“In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.” – in a speech at the Virginia Constitutional Convention, December 2, 1829
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.” – in a letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774
“War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.” – in the National Gazette, January 31, 1792
“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.” – in a letter to Robert Walsh Jr., March 2, 1819
“Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense… to the completion of his studies at the highest.” – in a letter to W. T. Barry, August 4, 1822
“The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.” – in a letter response to Albert Picket about starting a female college, September 1821
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives… Learned institutions ought to be favorite objects with ever free people. They throw light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty & dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.” – W. T. Barry, August 4, 1822
“America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.” – statement made at the Constitutional Convention, May 14, 1787
“I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.” – in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 19, 1786
James Madison, United States Founder, 1751-1836, was born into prominent planter and tobacco merchant family in Virginia, British colonial America, was raised as a member of the Southern colonies political elite which based its economy and wealth upon slave labor, was educated on Presbyterianism but heavily studied religious Deism in youth (the belief in a non-intervening unknowable Creator god, and that knowledge and direction is derived through observation and reasoning), became one of the largest landowners in the South through inherited and acquired properties and slaves, as a youth was well educated by a Scottish teacher and in 1771 graduated from the College of New Jersey (Princeton University), had studied Latin and ancient Hebrew to fluency and focused on public law as an adult, produced The Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, served in the Virginia state legislature during the American Revolutionary War, drafted with Thomas Jefferson the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom (separates religion and state), took a major role in drafting the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in 1791 organized the Democratic-Republican Party with Thomas Jefferson, drafted with Thomas Jefferson the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (states having the power to nullify unconstitutional laws), was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was the 5th U.S. Secretary of State, was the 4th President of the United States.
#JamesMadison #FoundingFather #UnitedStates
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Meet U.S. Founder Benjamin Rush:
“Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal.” – in an address to the Pennsylvania Legislature, 1786
“I shall only add to them a few observations which are intended to prove that the color and figure of that part of our fellow creatures who are known by the epithet of negroes, are derived from a modification of that disease, which is known by the name of Leprosy… The big lip, and flat nose so universal among the negroes, are symptoms of the leprosy… That the leprosy is the most durable in its descent to posterity, and the most indestructable in its nature of any disease we are aquainted with… That all the claims of superiority of the whites over the blacks, on account of their color, are founded alike in ignorance and inhumanity. If the color of the negroes be the effect of a disease, instead of inviting us to tyrannise over them, it should entitle them to a double portion of our humanity, for disease all over the world has always been the signal for immediate and unniversal compassion… Then let science and humanity combine their efforts, and endeavour to discover a remedy for it. Nature has lately unfurled a banner upon this subject. She has begun spontaneous cures of this disease in several black people in this country.” – from Observations Intended to Favour a Supposition That the Black Color (As It Is Called) of the Negroes Is Derived from the Leprosy, 1799 [Note, doctors like Rush were mistaking the disease vitiligo for “leprosy” in their day, hence their conclusion that black people are black because of disease and a cure to this disease would return them to being white like white folk.]
“It must afford no small pleasure to a benevolent mind in the midst of a war, which daily makes so much havoc with the human species, to reflect, that the small-pox which once proved equally fatal to thousands, has been checked in its career, and in a great degree subdued by the practice of Inoculation.” – from The New Method of Inoculating for the Small-Pox, 1792
“Contemplating merely the political institutions of the United States, I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them. We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible.” – from A Defence of the Use of the Bible in Schools, 1820
“I agree with you likewise in your wishes to keep religion and government independent of each Other. Were it possible for St. Paul to rise from his grave at the present juncture, he would say to the Clergy who are now so active in settling the political Affairs of the World… Christianity disdains to receive Support from human Governments. From this, it derives its preeminence over all the religions that ever have, or ever Shall exist in the World. Human Governments may receive Support from Christianity but it must be only from the love of justice, and peace which it is calculated to produce in the minds of men.” – in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 6 October 1800
Benjamin Rush, United States Founder, 1746-1813, was born in Philadelphia into a plantation family of English descent. He received his first college degree at age 14 at the College of New Jersey, then travelled to Scotland and obtained his M.D degree at the University of Edinburgh. Rush learned French, Italian, and Spanish fluently while in Europe. He returned to the British colonies of America in 1769, where he established a medical practice and became a chemistry professor in Philadelphia. Benjamin Rush personally knew and socialized with Thomas Paine, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington and helped them stir up the American Revolution. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, served as Surgeon-General in the Continental Army, was Treasury of the United States Mint for sixteen years, was the founder of Dickinson College, and participated in Pennsylvania establishing its first state penitentiary. Rush became active in the abolitionist movement in theory only – believing that black people were actually white people who looked as they did because of an offspring passable form of leprosy – and took considerable criticism as he continued to own a black slave for many years after joining the anti-slavery movement. He encouraged the establishment of college level education for women and supported free public schools for citizens – but, being devoutly religious, he was resistant to separation of church and state and encouraged the idea of federal government enforcing Bible study in public schools. He helped to found the Bible Society at Philadelphia, and assisted Richard Allen in founding the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
#BenjaminRush #FoundingFather #UnitedStates
#Resist #maga and white-ly #inhisimage #inhislikeness – stand together #Indivisible #UnitedWeStand #WomensMarch #BlackLivesMatter #NativeAmericanLivesMatter
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Out of all the Founders of the United States of America, the ones who declared Independence from Britain and formed the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, only one Founder (1 out of 15) had the view that the United States is a “Christian nation”. That one was John Jay, an active Protestant abolitionist to his credit but, like so many devoted Christians today, a bit naïve about the history of nations. The rest of the Founders, including a “Founding Mother”, saw the United States they were creating as a European-born ‘Enlightenment’ nation that “absolutely”, as several declared, separates church (religions) and state (civil constitutional union) legally by way of national constitution. Some most notable Founders that espoused this are John Adams, Thomas Paine, Abigail Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson. Many of the Founders embraced European religious Deism or Unitarianism which, with European ‘Enlightenment’ ideology of the 17th and 18th centuries, inspired them to revolt and form the United States of America in 1776. These are historical facts. They do not change just because we were not taught this or were taught an agenda ladened #alternativefacts version of history.
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“That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers,… setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible,… hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time… That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,… Be it enacted by General Assembly that … no man shall be compelled … nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, … and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities… we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1786, Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, precursor to the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the United States Constitution.
“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’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,… (is) in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan (Muslims), the Hindoo (Hindus), and infidel of every denomination.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1821, from his Autobiography
Thomas Jefferson and the fascinating history of Founding Fathers defending Muslim rights
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/11/how-thomas-jefferson-and-other-founding-fathers-defended-muslim-rights/?utm_term=.3eaee3d883db
“Islam has always been a part of America,” President Obama said during his first visit to a U.S. mosque Wednesday.
Indeed, a number of the Founding Fathers explicitly mentioned Muslims — along with other believers outside the prevailing Protestant mainstream — as they outlined the parameters of religious freedom and equal protection.
“When enshrining the freedom of religion in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, our Founders meant what they said when they said it applied to all religions,” Obama said Wednesday at the Islamic Society of Baltimore. “Back then, Muslims were often called Mahometans, and Thomas Jefferson explained that the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom that he wrote was designed to protect all faiths — and I’m quoting Thomas Jefferson now — ‘the Jew and the gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan.'”
This is correct history, real American history: In the founding of the United States of America, “In the formation of the American ideal and principles of what we consider to be exceptional American values, Muslims were, at the beginning, the litmus test for whether the reach of American constitutional principles would include every believer, every kind, or not.” – Denise Spellberg
Sadly, this is not taught in white-washed American history classes of modern public schools. Just like it is not taught that in 1954 (just slightly over 50 years ago, after the rise of the Christian-right political movement) the Pledge of Allegiance was altered *to include* the words “under God,” the U.S. paper currency was altered *to include* the words “In God We Trust,” and the motto of the United States was changed from “E Pluribus Unum” (From Many, One) to “In God We Trust.” The Founders of this democratic nation staunchly rejected it being *”in any sense,”* a Christian nation, being fully aware that this would just make the United States another British country (which they also staunchly rejected!).
“That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry” – Thomas Jefferson
There is a difference between personal opinions about religion, which everyone has (includes our nation’s Founders, who had negative personal things to say about Islam and Christianity), and our constitutional civil stance on religions. With our secular-based United States constitution, civil rights applies to all, regardless personal opinions about another’s religion. This is what makes the United States different from other nations within this world. We are not a Christian nation, and civil rights does not depend upon opinions but upon one’s behavior under the law.
“That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,… Be it enacted by General Assembly that… no man shall be compelled… nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief,… and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities… and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1786, Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, precursor to the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the United States Constitution.
“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 tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims).” – Joel Barlow, Treaty of Tripoli, November 4, 1796, which he negotiated and drafted with a Muslim nation on behalf of the United States, and was unanimously enacted by the Senate and signed into law.
“The bill for establishing religious freedom,… it’s protection of opinion was meant to be universal… they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan (Muslims), the Hindoo (Hindus), and infidel of every denomination.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1821, from his Autobiography
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What Does Being A “Constitutionalist” Mean Anyways?
(Alternate title, “How Our Elected Representatives Have Failed To Protect The Second Amendment”. In hindsight, this probably should have been the title for this post, given the social significance of the example used.)
“On every question of construction let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning can be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one which was passed.” – Thomas Jefferson, United States Founder, 1823, letter to William Johnson
To understand our United States Constitution, we must understand the following: the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the European ‘Era of Enlightenment’ and ‘Deist’ philosophies and their concept of “natural rights,” and the Founders own explanations of the meanings of various aspects of the constitution they put together. It is only by viewing constitutional rights from this perspective that we can correctly understand the rights put forth in these documents for the citizens of the United States. When someone says they are a “constitutionalist,” this process of understanding the foundational documents that our nation is built upon is a necessary requirement to applying a correct understanding of what the Founders intended by their belief in limiting government powers so as to not infringe upon the constitutional rights of the people. If they are not looking upon the documents in this way to understand how these constitutional laws and limitations to those laws apply to us in present times -and- how they do not, then they are not a constitutionalist from a constitutional “originalist”‘s perspective.
For example, let’s take a look at the modernly divisive issue of rights and limitations on those rights in regards to the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms – the individual citizen’s right to own, carry, and use a firearm. The constitution fully protects the individual’s right, under the understanding that by having armed citizens who are well-trained in the use of their firearms prevents the need to have a “standing militia,” a professional military force, which was seen by the Founders as a danger to have in the event of governmental or political corruption. Unlike what present day gun advocates profess, the right to own, carry, and use a firearm will always be constitutionally protected. The federal government is forbidden to ban individual ownership of firearms, and to make such a law that forbids citizens of any or all the States this right is clearly unconstitutional. But, no where does the constitution prevent the limiting of certain types weapons, for reasons of public safety, from common public areas. As well, no where does the constitution prevent the establishment of regulations upon the purchase of weapons to keep weapons out of the hands of those who are not or incapable of being “law-abiding” citizens. In both of these cases, the limitation placed upon a guarantee constitutional right is not unconstitutional, nor does it violate the individual right to owning firearms.
For example, there is no reason to have military grade weapons in the hands of every day citizens, easily bought and sold without regulation, other than to increase the profits of weapon manufacturers. Banning these weapons from public possession, especially in public places, does not violate the constitutional right “to keep and bear Arms” of citizens within this country. To further clarify, the constitutional purpose of granting this right to individual citizens was to prevent what we now have in our present day America, a professional “mercenary” force, an all-volunteer “standing army” that acts on behalf of a weaponless society of citizens – and that can act against them, the citizens of this country, on behalf of a corrupted powerful national government. This was a motivating reason for the Founders of the United States make the citizens themselves the national army of the United States, rather than doing as Europe had been doing regarding militias.
“Whenever people … entrust the defense of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens.” – “A Framer”, in the Independent Gazetteer, 1791. The worldwide British Empire that arose from colonizing other lands outside of Europe, to include the American continent, by the support of corporate-backed militias – private mercenary groups that eventually became European standing armies – is the historical backdrop to the considerations of the Founders on how to establish militias for national defense in the newly established United States of America. They were first hand privy to the benefits and corruptions of what already existed around them in the world, and believed that they needed to take a different approach to maintaining a “well regulated Militia” at a State level.
Now, per the constitution, there is a price to owning firearms as a citizen of the United States. The price that comes with this constitutional right to bear arms is that the citizens accept upon themselves that they must heed the call to militia duty, to accept being conscripted into sudden military service, in defense of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights from enemies “both foreign and domestic.” This is the reason for the Second Amendment right. “That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock,… and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise or into service,” a direct quote from the Militia Act of 1792. Firearms were regulated in the past, and service in a State militia was mandatory for males.
The question that comes to the application of this right in present day America is how it still applies in regards to conscripted militia service, with a present day “standing army” being in existence – not whether the right to own firearms constitutionally applies to the citizens of the United States. It is this “constitutionalist” perspective of understanding that is often being missed in the common verbal fights over weapons regulations being applied more seriously in the United States for the sake of “public safety” – something clearly needed, like laws that prohibit drinking or texting while driving a vehicle is clearly needed for public safety.
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”…”while power does not exist with the whole people to control rights that are purely and exclusively private, government may require ‘each citizen to so conduct himself, and so use his own property, as not unnecessarily to injure another.’ But by whom, or by what authority, is it to be determined whether… will injuriously affect the public? Power to determine such questions, so as to bind all, must exist somewhere; else society will be at the mercy of the few, who, regarding only their own appetites or passions, may be willing to imperil the peace and security of the many, provided only they are permitted to do as they please. Under our system that power is lodged with the legislative branch of the government. It belongs to that department to exert what are known as the police powers of the state, and to determine, primarily, what measures are appropriate or needful for the protection of the public morals, the public health, or the public safety.”
– 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, 1868, Article XIV Sec. 1 and Mugler v. Kansas, United States Supreme Court, 1887, 123 U.S. 623, 661
Unfortunately, we can see within present 21st century America the prolific examples of what the U.S. Supreme Court of 1887 was adjudicating on, “society will be at the mercy of the few, who, regarding only their own appetites or passions,” are “willing to imperil the peace and security of the many.” The shocking number of mass casualties of children, women, and men in active shooter events at schools, community centers, and religious establishments has been directly caused by a failure of our government representatives to protect the liberty and happiness – and the very lives – of many citizens across this nation. Favoring, instead, the well-financed lobbying efforts of gun manufacturers, the NRA, and their citizen supporters. As well, statistics collected yearly from all the states clearly demonstrate that gun related violence and deaths across this nation that involve weapons other than hand guns and rifles are often committed by individuals who are, either, not “lawful-abiding” citizens or not mentally stable enough to be in possession of powerful weapons that can cause mass injuries and deaths.
It is clearly a demonstrable fact, as well, that no law-abiding citizen is immune to becoming a law-breaking citizen through, either, misuse of a weapon in his/her possession or negligence resulting in someone else’s misuse of his/her constitutionally allowed weapon ownership. This happens in our society way more often than we like to collectively admit to ourselves. This violates the constitutional rights of those injured or killed, especially in common public places, to liberty and safety as citizens within the United States. To protect the constitutional right to “keep and bear Arms,” it is necessary to protect the rights of all citizens to “life and liberty,” as constitutionally mandated, and not just this specific right to firearms completely unregulated for the sake of a few.
So, in this example, which applies in the same way to all aspects of understanding the constitution of the United States, we begin to grasp the “constitutionalist” view of the U.S. Constitution within the perspective of the Framers intentions for its implementation. We cannot properly understand our inherited national social fiction, our binding “natural rights,” until we understand the historical time frame and perspective that the Founders based their thinking upon. We must understand the history of Europe, the philosophies of “Enlightenment” and “Deism” that were taking root in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and British colonial America, and we must understand the arguments the Founders themselves used to both create and to defend the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. To not take this amount of effort before coming to conclusions about the rights inherited through being a citizen of this country is to do a dis-service towards the Founders themselves, who risked all to achieve a unique nation among nations within this world. A nation that has no king or religious monarch, that has three branches of government that exist for the people’s “happiness,” that mandates an absolute separation of “church and state” to preserve religious freedom and to preserve an uncorrupted civil government, and that empowers the citizens with both the legal freedoms and responsibilities that come with being a United States American.
“The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law, is the intention of the law givers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances, provided they do not contradict the express words of the law.” – Thomas Jefferson to A. Gallatin, 1808.
“The particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.” – John Marshall: Opinion as Chief Justice in Marbury vs. Madison, 1802
“No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.” – Alexander Hamilton, “Father of the United States Constitution”
“It is every Americans’ right and obligation to read and interpret the Constitution for himself.” – Thomas Jefferson
#Constitutionalist #Constitutionalism #SecondAmendment #UnitedStatesSupremeCourt #FourteenthAmendment #ThomasJefferson #AlexanderHamilton #NRA
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Our Nation’s Founders Rejected Even The Idea Of A Muslim Ban
“That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,… Be it enacted by General Assembly that … no man shall be compelled … nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, … and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities… we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1786, Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, precursor to the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the United States Constitution.
If you honestly believe that our nation’s founders would approve of discrimination against Muslims, then you’re very misinformed about U.S. history. Our nation’s Founders rejected even the idea of a Muslim ban. To put it even more clearly, when establishing the concept of religious freedom as a “natural right” of “all” citizens, regardless their religious affiliation, our Founders insisted that the civil government had no right to infringe upon this, and this includes those practicing Islam. The only exception to this is when religious based activities of any religiously affiliated person threatens the general public health and safety of citizens as a whole. BUT, this infringement can *only* be assumed through individual “due process of law” – which is a constitutionally establish civil right. To violate this right of due process is to violate the “natural rights” of citizens that is protected by the United States Constitution and, per the Founders of the U.S. Constitution, in any time this is unconstitutional.
For a president to write an executive order, such as our nation’s 1st illegitimately-elected president has done, that indiscriminately targets individuals for removal or banning from entering our country those who have the legal right to be here, and to do this without individual due process of law occurring first to render a fair judgement, is simply unconstitutional and a violation of citizens “natural rights.” There is no other way to look upon this under the United States Constitution. Our nation’s contract with its citizens demands a separation of religious bigotry, whether disguise as “protecting Americans” or not, from matters of governing. The Founders, when forming their religious freedom acts, went so far as to use “Mahometan” (Muslims) as some would call a “litmus test” as to how far these clauses of separating church from state actually apply. It’s not that hard to look these writings up in our national archives! What is clearly apparent in their writings is that United States is “not, in any sense, a Christian nation” – a sentiment they expressed in a treaty with a Muslim nation, that the United States government cannot infringe upon the religious freedom of any religion – and this specifically includes the “Mahometan,” the “Hindoo,” and the “infidel”; and that the United States government cannot favor in its actions one religion over another.
“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’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,… (is) in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan (Muslims), the Hindoo (Hindus), and infidel of every denomination.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1821, from his Autobiography
In others words, the Founders where very serious about this! They would be shocked today by what is going on in the United States of America – especially in regards to politicize Christianity playing out in our legislative halls and by the rampant misuse of the second amendment to proliferate massive amounts of firearms and gun violence, without any reasonable regulation for public safety, all for the sake of a manufacturing and profiting few. If the United States of America is to remain a democratic nation that respects the constitutional established rights of all its citizens, then American citizens need to start learning the real history of America and what these “unalienable” rights are. Our elected officials need to be held accountable for failing to protect these constitutional laws guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution.
Professor Denise Spellberg gives a correct understanding of United States history in regards to the consideration of Muslim citizens as members of our country, some real American history here: In the literal founding of the United States of America, “In the formation of the American ideal and principles of what we consider to be exceptional American values, Muslims were, at the beginning, the litmus test for whether the reach of American constitutional principles would include every believer, every kind, or not.” – Denise Spellberg, History Professor, University of Texas, author of “Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders.” Yes, Thomas Jefferson owned a Quran, and he also created the unique Jefferson Bible, which is the life and teachings of the “human” Jesus of the Christian Bible, minus all supernatural scriptural references.
Sadly, vitally important aspects of history regarding the founding of this nation and the early history of the United States is not taught properly in the “severely white-washed” American history classes of our modern public schools. For example, the severity of chattel slavery in America upon enslaved blacks and how, in the Southern states, slavery did not actually end with the Emancipation Proclamation of the North. Rather, it only changed form into a State-sponsored prison-pipeline industry based heavily on fabricated crimes, all to use black people in an even more physically inhumane industrial set of ways than the inhumanity of chattel slavery was. The “convict leasing” programs of the Southern States, that were legally justified by the 13th Amendment, afforded the Southern states a way to continue their economy based on slavery using free black slave labor, just as it had before. Although, these programs would eventually come to an end, it would not be until 1945 – the 20th century – that a white citizen is actually successfully prosecuted for owning a slave, a citizen of Texas.
If we wanted to take this two steps forward, then let’s not forget the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II, all because they “might” threaten the public safety of predominantly white citizens within the United States, seeing how we were “at war” with Japan at the time. And, let’s not forget that the enslavement of blacks by way of, first, chattel slavery and, then, by way of prison chain-gangs was not the only form of cheap labor in the South throughout the history of the United States. There is also the historical act of Peonage, debt-slavery which was outlawed by Congress in 1867 but continued on into the 1940’s, which made use of workers of black and Mexican descent to be used for hard and laborious work that white folk were simply not willing to do. American history classes are replete with missing history about much or most of this. We haven’t even touched upon the genocidal history towards the First Peoples of the American continent, Native Americans, the “real” Americans of America.
I know of no American history book used in public school curriculums that make a point to clarify that it is only since 1954 – just slightly over 50 years ago, after the rise of the Christian-right political movement in the United States – that the Pledge of Allegiance was altered to include the words “under God,” the U.S. paper currency was altered to include the words “In God We Trust,” and the motto of the United States was changed from “E Pluribus Unum” (From Many, One) to officially “In God We Trust.” Further, by the time of our involvement in World War II, we stopped using a public encouraged salute to the Flag of the United States that is very reminiscent of the Nazi regime’s salute to their leader, Adolf Hitler. This historical salute to our flag had now become a political inconvenience, so hand over heart now – only. But, back to the subject of this post: The Founders of this democratic nation staunchly rejected the United States being “in any sense,” a Christian nation – being fully aware that this would just make the United States another British country within this world, if they did, which they also staunchly rejected!
So, where am I going with this? We need education as a nation, an understanding of our national history and historical roots. This is the only way to combat the ignorance-based racist, bigoted, and xenophobic tendencies towards fear of others that persists in way too great a many Americans citizens throughout the United States, that lead to leaders elected that prey upon such fears, and that lead to laws and executive orders that unconstitutionally discriminate against the constitutionally guaranteed rights of many of our American citizens – from women to ethnic/racial minorities, from LGBTQ to those of different traditions and those who are secular and non-religious. To add to this, the American fear that is based in ignorance of our rich history as a nation, the misinformation and revisionist history that is taught in many of the public and private schools, and in the pulpits of the dominant religious denominations throughout the country. We have got to actually to start really educating both our adults and our youths, so that we can realize as a whole populous when we are tending towards supporting a politically infused ideology that the Founders themselves would stand against, and have actually done so in their very own writings for and about this nation – and its purpose within this world.
“The fact of the matter is this is a trampling on religious freedom and religious liberty in this country.” – Tom Price, Republican, 2012, referring to civil laws that impose limitations in public places upon the unfettered right to practice religious-based discrimination among Christians.
This quote directly above is the politically radicalized evangelical Christian’s response to near everything that offends them, from birth control for women in the United States to the Christian declared “evil”s of Islam and Communism in countries around the world, as they try to enforce their Christian religion’s morals and theology upon the rest of the citizens of the United States – and the world. Claiming that, if they can’t, it’s religious “persecution” and a denial of their specific religious liberty. This attempt to impose Christian “values” into the political legislative aspect of American civil life is literally trampling on and violating the clearly laid out constitutional rights, which are expounded upon by the Founders of this nation in great detail for those willing to read, of citizens who are not devout bible toting and believing Christians. In no simpler terms, the constitution already protects your rights, Christians, to live within your churches according to your constitutionally protected religious beliefs. But, it also clearly protects the religious and non-religious beliefs of citizens who are not Christians and have no civil desire to live according to your religious ways. This is one of the fundamental freedoms of citizenship within this nation!
Our constitutional rights, all the rest of us who are citizens, must be upheld as well within the sphere of the general public and within governmental policies, and it is unconstitutional to use the U.S. government to favor your religious beliefs at the expense of those whose beliefs are different from yours. Either we are a democratic nation with separation of church and state, as the Founders created and insisted us to be, or we are a democratic theocracy of a particular dominate religion that is trying desperately to indoctrinate the public into thinking that this nation is actually a “Christian nation” – opposite of the Founders’ clearly expressed intent – rather than a pluralistic nation with certain “unalienable rights” that apply to every citizen of the United States. And, per the constitution, no citizens natural rights may be infringed upon – unless there is a public, not personally religious, greater threat to allowing it and, especially, a citizen’s rights may not be infringed upon without due process of law adjudicating this infringement. If we are to remain a democratic nation as the Founders sought us in writing to be, then your majority religion’s bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, and religious immorality will be denied by the greater majority of U.S. citizens and you will lose this decades long now attempt at a hostile take-over of our constitutional assured liberty.
As well, America has a lot of governmental humbling and national apologizing to do around the world, through our use of military force to redesign the political and economic nature of other countries in order to push our capitalistic and nationalistic religious ideologies upon other nations. We, the United States of America, are the main contributor to why things are the way they are now throughout the Greater Middle East. Our “preventive wars,” our wars of “global interventionism,” gave rise to nations like Iran and to terrorists organizations such as Al Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS, Islamic State). And, even now, our “war on terror” perpetuates the very threats we seek to defend ourselves from – for the sake of “American safety.” America is not a Christian nation at war with Islam, we cannot impose democracy upon the citizens of other nations in hopes for political/capitalistic alliance, and the answer is not in bombing away or throwing military forces at an ideology that we helped to create within this world. The consequences will continue to grow for us, the more we continue to persist on such fool-hearty/idealistic behavior. The sooner we realize this as the citizens of our nation and take back control of how and when our all-volunteer military acts on our behalf in this world, the sooner we will have real security in the United States.
The honest truth, which is easily historically verifiable, is that our greatest threat to our safety as U.S. citizens is mainly coming from the extremism that we allow to exist and flourish from within our very own country. And it is well time that we learn our history, Americans, and see beyond our “feel good, see how we are so exceptional” propaganda that we hold about ourselves. When we are showing our exceptionalism in our actions and in our laws, in our foreign and domestic policies, then we are demonstrably an “exceptional” nation. Talk is simply not enough, and there is way to much of talking and chanting going on. With most of this talk, there is action that we cannot rightfully be proud of as Americans, for these actions stand against our pluralist democratic established values as a nation. They show us our less than idealistic side, especially with how we treat one another as citizens within this nation. Again, continuing in this world as a democratic nation is what literally is at stake, folks, for us here. How are we going to respond to this?
Alright, enough said within this post.
“The declaration of Rights, it seems to me, rather contends against forcing modes of faith and forms of worship, than against compelling contribution for the support of religion in general. I fully agree with the presbyterians, that true freedom embraces the Mahomitan (Muslim) and the Gentoo (Hindu) as well as the Christian religion. And upon this liberal ground I hope our Assembly will conduct themselves.” – Richard Henry Lee, 1784, letter to James Madison
“I am informed that a Ship with Palatines is gone up to Baltimore, among whom are a number of Tradesmen. I am a good deal in want of a House Joiner & Bricklayer, (who really understand their profession) & 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 Assia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans (Muslims), Jews, or Christian of any Sect – or they may be Athiests – I woud however prefer middle aged, to young men. and those who have good countenances & good characters on ship board, to others who have neither of these to recommend them” – George Washington, 1784, letter to Tench Tilghman which reveals the religiously fluid and tolerant mindset of Washington
“Let Jews, Mehometans (Muslims) and Christians of every denomination enjoy religious liberty… thrust them not out now by establishing the Christian religion lest thereby we become our own enemys and weaken this infant state.” – citizens petition to the state assembly of Chesterfield County, Va., Nov. 14, 1785
#MuslimBan #USConstitution #Mohametan #Muslims #NaturalRights #UnalienableRights #FreeExerciseClause #EstablishmentClause #AmericanSafety
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“That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry” – Thomas Jefferson
There is a difference between personal opinions about religion, which everyone has (includes our nation’s Founders, who had negative personal things to say about Islam and Christianity), and our constitutional civil stance on religions. With our secular-based United States constitution, civil rights applies to all, regardless personal opinions about another’s religion. This is what makes the United States different from other nations within this world. We are not a Christian nation, and civil rights does not depend upon opinions but upon one’s behavior under the law.
“That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,… Be it enacted by General Assembly that… no man shall be compelled… nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief,… and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities… and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1786, Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, precursor to the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the United States Constitution.
“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 tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims).” – Joel Barlow, Treaty of Tripoli, November 4, 1796, which he negotiated and drafted with a Muslim nation on behalf of the United States, and was unanimously enacted by the Senate and signed into law.
“The bill for establishing religious freedom,… it’s protection of opinion was meant to be universal… they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan (Muslims), the Hindoo (Hindus), and infidel of every denomination.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1821, from his Autobiography
“The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.” – James Baldwin, A Talk to Teachers, October 16, 1963
“I began to appreciate that authentic truth is never simple and that any version of truth handed down from on high – whether by presidents, prime ministers, or archbishops – is inherently suspect.” – Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War
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Sadly, the makers of this beautiful graphic do not teach real American history, but Christianized revisionist history instead. It’s sad, especially considering their stated intent to impart truthful information on a historically imperfect and evolving nation.
The Quick Historical Facts About Our United States Founders (the 16 most significant):
1 was Black, and 1 was a woman. 10 were college educated, and 2 were school teachers. 5 were lawyers, 6 were politicians, and 3 were scientists. 5 were born wealthy, 4 were multi-lingual, and 1 was clergy. 5 were writers, and 1 was a journalist. 8 were abolitionists (against slavery), and 5 were slave owners. 3 were immigrants from Europe, and 13 were American born. 4 were Deist, 2 were devoutly anti-clerical Deist, 2 were Unitarian, 1 was a religious apostate, 1 was a religious rationalist (Enlightenment), 1 was a religious liberal, 1 was a professor of religion, 1 was a Puritan nationalist, 1 was a civil-rights Methodist, and 2 were devout Protestant nationalists. One of the last one was the only Founder to believe the United States is a “Christian nation”, and all the other Founders espoused the United States as a people-ruled “Republic” that is not bound to any one particular religion. Oh, yes, in the spirit of historical honesty, and 1 was a rapist, despite all the progressive egalitarianism he added with others to our nation’s founding documents.
James Wilson – college educated, immigrated, lawyer, U.S. Constitution framer, Deist
Thomas Paine – schoolteacher, writer, immigrated, abolitionist, Deist
Ethan Allen – American war hero, writer, Deist
Abigail Adams – political advisor, writer, staunch abolitionist, Unitarian
Richard Allen – freed slave, abolitionist, civil rights leader, Methodist minister
John Adams – college educated, lawyer, diplomat, politician, abolitionist, Unitarian convert
Benjamin Franklin – author, scientist, inventor, statesman, fire-fighter, science college founder, slave-owner turned abolitionist, anti-clerical Deist
Thomas Jefferson – college-educated, multi-lingual, politician, Declaration of Independence and Religious Freedom Statute framer, University founder, wealthy slave-owner, anti-clerical Deist
Samuel Adams – college educated, tax collector, politician, advocate for “free education”, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, used his Puritan-raised values in the service of national republicanism
Alexander Hamilton – raised in childhood in a multi-ethnic environment, college-educated, multi-lingual, immigrated, Revolutionary war veteran, staunch abolitionist, lawyer, politician, religious apostate
John Jay – born wealthy, college educated, lawyer, staunch abolitionist, Protestant
Joel Barlow – born wealthy, college-educated, writer, printer, journalist, diplomat, abolitionist, religious rationalist
Roger Sherman – self educated, college-degreed, lawyer, politician, diplomat, store owner, staunch abolitionist, college Professor of Religion
George Washington – born wealthy, land surveyor, militarist and veteran, diplomat, politician, slave owner, religious liberal
James Madison – born wealthy, college educated, multi-lingual, lawyer, politician, U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights framer, Religious Freedom Statute framer, slave owner, Deist
Benjamin Rush – born wealthy, college educated, multi-lingual, doctor, scientist, professor, writer, abolitionist in theory, slave owner, religious “orthodoxy and heterodoxy” Christian Universalist
What is not being properly taught to students in the 20th and 21st centuries is that the 18th century Founders of the United States of America were fighting on two fronts. The first front was their fight against Britain for Colonial America’s national independence. The second front was their fight against the systemic slave-economy social structure that existed within Colonial America, now turned independent nation of the United States as of hard won independence. What is most missed in history is the whole and complete facts about the Founders and their actual historically demonstrable beliefs, and about the easily verifiable history of and between these two nations.
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On what date in 1776 did the Continental Congress vote to establish a new country called the United States of America?
On the 2nd of July 1776, the Continental Congress of Colonial British America voted to legally separate the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain and establish a new independent country of United Colonies. This is known as the Lee Resolution. The Founders of this new United States of America took this solemn action of national independence for the following reasons: 1) in protest over unfair British taxation without Colonial representation in Britain, and 2) in defiance of monarchical and church rule over the civil affairs of government. The 18th Century was the age of embracing religious Deism, science by the Scientific Method, and the philosophy of European Enlightenment – which dictated that it is “the People” who have the supreme power to establish law in a democratic form, and that this power is universally protected by inalienable (Diest-God given) “natural rights.” The European Enlightenment led to both the American and French political revolutions, and to the political transformation of Europe in general. On the 4th of July 1776, the Congress approved and publicized the United States Declaration of Independence. Though it is the 2nd of July 1776 that Independence was officially declared, it is the 4th of July 1776 that we nationally celebrate this national act of declaring governmental independence.
John Adams, U.S.Founder: “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States.” – in a letter to his closest political advisor and wife, Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776
#FourthofJuly Do your children a blessing by learning and knowing the real and honest history (not modern reinvented history) of the United States of America. #DeclarationofIndependence #JohnAdams #AbigailAdams
#Standfortheusflag when respecting the lives of those who’ve died for this country, out of respect for their sacrifice. But, #TakeAKnee for social justice during the playing of the racist Star-Spangled Banner, even if the flag is still being displayed – for #BlackLivesMatter in the United States of America! It is time for a new national anthem, that honors #ResorativeJustice and #TruthandReconciliation for the United States of America – that honors *all* our legal citizens! Likewise, #DontSayThePledge until the 1950’s added “under God” is removed from it and the original pledge is nationally restored! Most importantly and above all, take a *patriotic stand* for social justice and separation of church and state in the United States of America. And, especially so, on this annually recognized Day of Independence.
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#MAGA #Resist #ResistTrump #Indivisible #UnitedWeStand #WomensMarch #NationalPopularVote #NotAChristianNation #inhisimage #inhislikeness
#Alllivesmatter in the United States when America begins to fully embrace its history and its constitution, and when #WhitePrivilege ceases to have meaning in U.S. society.
#Whitelivesmatter will only have meaning as soon as #TruthandReconciliation and #SocialJustice is embraced by white society across this nation. Get to know those who are not “white”!
10 Comments
Joseph T Farkasdi · March 12, 2017 at 5:13 pm
History is messy. Some United States founders were staunch abolitionists, and some were white supremacist slave-owners. Some U.S. founders were European immigrants, and some were native-born (as it is said). Most U.S. founders were male white folk, but a few were people of color or were women. Most U.S. founders were devoutly anti-clerical, meaning seeking to remove religion from all aspects of civil life, but a very select few wanted a ‘Christian’ nation. Most U.S. founders were pious to the philosophies of European Deism and Enlightenment, most were college educated lawyers, and a good number were the rich elite of the British colonial America. Warner Mifflin was a U.S. founder and staunch Quaker abolitionist, who felt that his ‘God’ demanded that he fight for the freeing of African slaves in America. How many of us know anything about this U.S. founder?
The Tireless Abolitionist Nobody Ever Heard of – History News Network
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/167060
“The number, difficulties, and success of his labours in the cause of the enslaved Africans in the United States would furnish materials for a volume,” wrote the Gazette of the United States in October 1798 after hearing of the death of a man well known in the streets of the nation’s capital in the 1790s. Another newspaper remembered how “he begat hope in the minds of the miserable,” while slaveholders “(by some of whom he was grossly insulted) trembled at his name.” Richard Allen, founder and minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, called him “a spiritual Moses,” and reminded Philadelphians that for many years, the man had been instrumental “in liberating hundreds, if not thousands of the African race,” certain that the memory of “that great and good man . . . will not be forgotten for ages to come.”
But the name of Warner Mifflin has receded into the remote reaches of American memory. Indeed, almost nobody knows his name today. When the new nation was young, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and the other founding fathers knew him well. There was no such thing as a mid-Atlantic Quaker who couldn’t recognize the man, not just for his unusual height, little short of seven feet, but for his moral intensity that was exceeded only by his haunting fear that he would displease his God with inadequate efforts on behalf of black Americans. So did overseas luminaries of the Enlightenment know and admire Mifflin…
#USFounders #BlackLivesMatter #WarnerMifflin
#alllivesmatter only when actual American history is taught and #truthandreconciliation has been established in the United States of America. It’s the only way to #maga, as if it wasn’t already greater than it’s ever been!
Let’s get the #NationalPopularVote in place before #Trump #TrumpPence 2020!
When all humans are found be #inhisimage #inhislikeness and deserving of equal rights and treatment under the law, only then will the United States be a nation worthy of emulation by the rest of the world.
Warner Mifflin, U.S. Founder: “To the President, Senate and House of Representatives of the United States—
“He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God”—2d Sam: 23.3.
Having for a long time felt my mind impressed with a religious engagement on your account, and a belief that if measures are not taken to redress the wrongs, and alleviate the sufferings and oppression of the African race in these states, the Almighty will manifest his displeasure in a more conspicuous manner than has yet appeared: The consideration whereof excites me in his fear, earnestly to sollicit and solemnly to warn you, to exert your power and influence, that right and justice may be done in this important case.
I have been also affected with the following declaration of the prophet, Vizt Ezek. 3.20. “When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sins, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembred; but his blood will I require at thine hand.[”]
21. “Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.”
Now, I cannot view the declaration made by the first Congress, in substance to amount to any thing short of a solemn covenant, entered into with the God of Heaven and the whole earth; Vizt We hold these truths self evident, that all men were created equal, that they were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty &ca; and which remains obligatory on the present Congress so to consider—How then have those rights become alienated, that Americans shall be permitted to continue to ravage the coast of Africa, thereby promoting murder, pillaging, plundering and burning its towns, and inslaving its inhabitants; and in the United States, while some of those very men, who perhaps with their own hands subscribed the aforesaid declaration, remain in the Supreme Legislature,…” – letter to George Washington, 23 November 1792
– Read more: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-11-02-0243
Joseph T Farkasdi · August 16, 2017 at 1:14 pm
For those who do not know the reason for the Confederacy:
“We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable. That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.” – A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union and be formally admitted into the Confederated Union, 2 February, 1861
For those who do not know the reason for the Confederacy:
“The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution… Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations. If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs.” – A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Georgia to Secede from the Federal Union, January 29, 1861
For those who do not know the reason for the Confederacy:
“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.” – A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union, January 9, 1861.
For those who do not know the reason for the Confederacy:
“The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor. We affirm that these ends for which this [Federal] Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.” – Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, December 24, 1860.
The Reasons for Secession
https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/reasons-secession
The root cause of the American Civil War is perhaps the most controversial topic in American history. Even before the war was over, scholars in the North and South began to analyze and interpret the reasons behind the bloodshed.
#CivilWar #Confederate #ReasonsforSeceding
Let’s get the #NationalPopularVote in place before #Trump #TrumpPence 2020!
#Resist #Indivisible #UnitedWeStand #WomensMarch #maga #inhisimage #inhislikeness
#Alllivesmatter in the United States when America begins to fully embrace its history and its constitution, and when #WhitePrivilege ceases to have meaning in U.S. society.
The United States desperately needs #TruthandReconciliation and #SocialJustice starting today!
Joseph T Farkasdi · August 24, 2017 at 2:03 pm
History is messy and complex. it is never simplistic. Humans and our history have to be understood in context – in the context of the time history is being made. Without this, we are given to demonizing and idealizing people and places incompletely, not honestly taking into account their full strengths and failings.
For all his racist and rapist failings, Thomas Jefferson had the good sense *not* to include race as a condition of citizenship in the founding documents of this country. Most of the Founders who helped to create this republic were abolitionists and, in many of the newly formed states of the Union, black people were citizens. But, in order to create this “more perfect” self-governing Union, certain morally depraved compromises had to be made at this time in history with the slaving-owning states – for their Southern slave economy was the primary money source for the new Republic.
The reality is that all the Founders stood against rule by monarchy and church, but some still clinged to the racist, oppressive economic practices of the South. The struggle over the humanity of blacks in America would eventually turn into an all out Civil War not that long after this nation’s founding. This would lead to rise of a new and more deplorable form of slavery for black people in the South in the form of deliberate unfair encarceration of blacks for state “convict leasing” programs. The to-prison pipeline for People of Color had been born as a response to the Confederate loss of the Civil War.
The Civil War was an action the Southern states engaged in to create a separate constitutionally-enshrined “Christian” “slave-owning” nation directly below the (now smaller) United States of America. A Southern nation that specifically declares in its constitution that only white people have citizenship and that black people are slaves by (racially-determined) inheritance. Thankfully, the North won the Civil War! It’s important to learn our history as a nation, lest we continue to repeat the mistakes of our past.
Discover What Our U.S. Founders Actually Believed
http://www.aniyostsef.com/index/like-a-droplet-of-energy-water-we-each-individually-are/learn-what-u-s-founders-actually-believed/
#ThomasJefferson #StatesRights #Confederate
Let’s get the #NationalPopularVote in place before #Trump #TrumpPence 2020!
#Resist #Indivisible #UnitedWeStand #WomensMarch #maga #inhisimage #inhislikeness
#Alllivesmatter in the United States when America begins to fully embrace its history and its constitution, and when #WhitePrivilege ceases to have meaning in U.S. society.
The United States desperately needs #TruthandReconciliation and #SocialJustice starting today!
Joseph T Farkasdi · August 24, 2017 at 5:17 pm
Robert E Lee, Confederate Army:
“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.”
– justifying his racism in a letter to his wife, Mary Anne Lee, 27 December 1856
Making Sense of Robert E. Lee
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/making-sense-of-robert-e-lee-85017563/
“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.”— Robert E. Lee, at Fredericksburg
#RobertELee #CivilWar
Let’s get the #NationalPopularVote in place before #Trump #TrumpPence 2020!
#Resist #Indivisible #UnitedWeStand #WomensMarch #maga #inhisimage #inhislikeness
#Alllivesmatter in the United States when America begins to fully embrace its history and its constitution, and when #WhitePrivilege ceases to have meaning in U.S. society.
The United States desperately needs #TruthandReconciliation and #SocialJustice starting today!
Joseph T Farkasdi · October 14, 2017 at 7:26 pm
The simple historical truth is that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and other documents like it were a formal rejection of Judeo-Christian values and an embracement of 17-18th century European Enlightenment values – that of secular self-rule, spreading mercantile capitalism, and advancing the scientific revolution. Theism was replaced with Deism, fear of the future was replaced with belief in the future, the Ten Commandments was replaced with the civil Constitution, the church-ordained King was replaced with a people-elected President, rule by church-backed monarchy was replaced with three co-equal separate branches of government, and religion was separated from the affairs of civil governance.
There can be no democracy in a nation where theocratic beliefs and laws are held supreme in civil legislative discourse – for this stands against the very concept of a people’s democracy!
Don’t trust me on this, like I wouldn’t ask you to trust your preachers. Learn for yourself, by studying – honestly and objectively – the history of the United States for yourself! Interestingly, it is a rejection of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and methods of self-regulation to make claim that our modern democratic methods of governance are Judeo-Christian based. But, humans are well known for contradicting and distorting beliefs, when it makes them feel good and important and serves their specific interests.
Discover What Our U.S. Founders Actually Believed
http://www.aniyostsef.com/index/like-a-droplet-of-energy-water-we-each-individually-are/learn-what-u-s-founders-actually-believed/
What would the Founders of our nation think about a Post-Truth America? Would their view of what America is expected to be prove similar to how we view the United States today?
Quotes of the Founders, their thoughts on religion and governance, the reason for the #AmericanRevolution and the #DeclarationofIndependence for #maga #inhisimage #inhislikeness to actually read!
#alllivesmatter when we realize that we are a nation of civil laws, not theocratic laws, a nation founded in the religious beliefs of Deism and European Enlightenment.
Joseph T Farkasdi · December 21, 2017 at 3:40 pm
Are you under the belief that the founders of the United States did not think about socialism?
Though the term socialism wasn’t coined until 1817, if I recall the date, by Henri de Saint-Simon, who in his early years took part in the siege of Yorktown under General Washington, the concepts of democratic socialism was not foreign to the founders of the United States. Nor, were they opposed to the idea of government taking care of the citizens in some ways. After all, the founders of the United States were heavily influenced by the Enlightenment philosophies of Europe, and near all were “Ivy League” college graduates with degrees in law, business, politics, science, religion, and philosophy. As well, the founders were avid readers of prominent writers of the time, such as Thomas Paine – who happens to have published Agrarian Justice in 1797, which is a pamphlet that details the concept of taxing land owners once per generation to pay for the needs of those who have no land. Uh, hello? This is thoughts on wealth redistribution, 18th century style!
Further, in the United States constitution itself are socialistic concepts, though they didn’t call it socialism in their time – rather good and responsible government. In Section 8 of Article 1, Congress authorized a variety of social institutions for the “common Defence and general Welfare of the United States,” that is maintained through “Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises”. For example, to establish post offices and roads, to raise and support an Army and Navy, and no where does the constitution say that such acts of socialism should be refrained just to these provisions. It was President Jefferson himself that authorized the laying of our nation’s highway system, thus paving the road for government sponsored public transportation to support the democratic capitalist economy that made our nation’s emergence onto the world scene a tad different from the rest. And, let’s not even get into the views of the founders on public education, and its imperative social need for every citizen – so much, that some thought it should be free. One could write a book on this (and many have)!
So, how were you taught to define socialism?
According to the founders of this nation, being free to be an individual is great! But, such individualism has its limits, when it comes to the social welfare of a nation of individuals. It’s a balancing act, that requires a citizen involved representative democracy to achieve. In the United States, it is capitalist-based democratic socialism that governs national order! When our founders found it necessary to tax the rich or collective community to provide benefit to the needy or the public whole, they were embracing a form of socialism. Yes. There are different kinds of socialism, but the common core to all forms is a certain social ownership and responsibly for everyone within the whole. Some systems strip out the capitalism to achieve this and, thus, create communism. Some systems embrace capitalism, and find a political balance between government and free enterprise. Those countries that strip socialism away, keeping only the capitalism, lead themselves towards fascism.
Socialism is at its fundamental core about democratic public economic control over production and its wealth affects. This can take root in a range of many institutions for the common good, but is all regulated by a government that is collecting taxes upon its citizens. We simply could not be a capitalist nation, without embracing an agreed upon form of socialism by which to govern it for the common good.
Final thought: The first thing I try to get across to people about history is that history is always messy. There are no absolutes, and apparent contradictions can usually be found within individuals and within societies. So, it is with the Enlightenment philosophies of Europe and with the beliefs and actions of the U.S. founding fathers and mothers.
#MAGA through inclusive capitalism-based democratic socialism that eliminates wealth inequality, racism, xenophobic nationalism, religion-influenced politics, misogyny, and the failure to educate thoroughly. So, that everyone in the United States knows that they, too, are #InHisImage and not #UnderHisEye, because everyone has a fair and honest opportunity for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as is afforded in writing by our U.S. Constitution.
Joseph T Farkasdi · May 29, 2018 at 4:31 pm
Abraham Lincoln said, “Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap–let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;–let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars… Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence. — Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws” – in a speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838. – http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm
If we really want to #maga, then we need to re-embrace the civil secularist reverence for the rule of constitutional law, as the political religion of the nation that we all uphold! #inhisimage does not belong in government, it is antithetical to the intentions of our nation’s founders!
Joseph T Farkasdi · July 4, 2018 at 3:06 am
Like 242 Years Ago, Again We Declare Our Independence!
Like our nation’s founders before us, in 1776 – TODAY – we celebrate our “Independence” from the monarch, Donald Trump. We celebrate our “Independence” from the priest, Mike Pence. And, we celebrate our “Independence” from the “unfair taxation” of everyday citizens, courtesy the GOP, all to support the near tax-free lifestyles of the ultra-rich in the (now Un-)united States of America. Impeach Trump! Impeach Pence! – AND, above all – Free ourselves from the legacy* of Britain! Because of our U.S. Constitution, we are still “one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”!
November 6, 2018, is very near, folks! It’s time for a super-majority once more, in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. A super-majority of “citizens”, not professional “politicians”, elected as our representatives – who are there to do the People’s legislative bidding! Save our representative republic, and #maga by ridding our legislative halls of despots and the influences of the church! Our nation’s founders expect this of us.
That Trump guy is #NotOurPresident! He wasn’t when the #GOP inaugurated him as #45th – against the voted will of the majority of U.S. citizens – and he isn’t our 45th now. Illegitimacy simply cannot be condoned, or honored!
* Legacy – origin & (definition): late Middle English (denoting the function or office of a deputy, especially a papal legate): from Old French legacie, from medieval Latin legatia ‘legateship,’ from legatus ‘person delegated’ (see legate – a member of the clergy, representing the Pope).
#Indivisible must replace politicized #inhisimage within our halls of congress, if we really honor #IndependenceDay #4thofJuly! #Resist
Joseph T Farkasdi · March 31, 2019 at 1:21 am
With all these recent legislative efforts by Christians in states across this nation to put Bibles into schools, to fund religious school playgrounds with taxpayer money, and to give money marked for public schools to private religious schools also, it very important to remind ourselves how the framers of this nation envisioned this mixing of religion and state. – What do the archives say? Were they for or against funding? Read below:
James Madison Jr is consider the “Father of the U.S. Constitution” and the United States Bill of Rights. He was one of the most important and influential founders of this nation. So, when a bill was introduced in 1785 in his Virginia state to fund “establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion”, he was called upon to draft a response. Directly below is the Virginia response to this bill. And, it served as model for the whole nation, at a federal level.
James Madison wrote that the bill entitled “A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion” “if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power” and must be “remonstrate against” for the following reasons:
“Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, ‘that Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.’ [Virginia Declaration of Rights, art. 16] The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right…
We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no mans right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance… if Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body…
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? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?…
If ‘all men are by nature equally free and independent,’ [Virginia Declaration of Rights, art. 1] all men are to be considered as entering into Society on equal conditions; as relinquishing no more, and therefore retaining no less, one than another, of their natural rights. Above all are they to be considered as retaining an ‘equal title to the free exercise of Religion according to the dictates of Conscience.’ [Virginia Declaration of Rights, art. 16] Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us…
As the Bill violates equality by subjecting some to peculiar burdens, so it violates the same principle, by granting to others peculiar exemptions.” – James Madison, 20 June 1785, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-08-02-0163
To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia A Memorial and Remonstrance
——-
If you’re interested, here are additional thoughts by our nation’s founders along this subject for your consideration:
Benjamin Franklin, 1780, “If Christian Preachers had continued to teach as Christ & his Apostles did, without Salaries, and as the Quakers now do, I imagine Tests would never have existed: For I think they were invented not so much to secure Religion itself, as the Emoluments of it.— 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, ’tis a Sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one. But I shall be out of my Depth if I wade any deeper in Theology, & I will not trouble you with Politicks,” – letter to Richard Price, 9 October 1780
Thomas Paine, a very popular writer of tracts in early U.S. history, 1794 , “I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy…
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.
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.
I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself.
Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.” – Age of Reason, Part First, Section 1
George Washington, 22 January 1793, “We have abundant reason to rejoice, that, in this land, the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened age, & in this land of equal liberty, it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining & holding the highest offices that are known in the United States.” – Letter to the members of The New Church in Baltimore, published in The Writings Of George Washington (1835) by Jared Sparks, p. 201
John Adams, 1756, “Major Greene this evening fell into some conversation with me about the Divinity and satisfaction of Jesus Christ. All the argument he advanced was, “that a mere creature or finite being could not make satisfaction to infinite justice for any crimes,” and that “these things are very mysterious.” Thus mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity.” – Entry of 13 February 1756 in Charles Francis Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations vol. 2 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850)
Thomas Paine, 1794, “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.” – Age of Reason, Part First, Section 4
Thomas Jefferson, 1787, “4. Religion. your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. in the first place divest yourself of all bias in favour of novelty & singularity of opinion. indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. it is too important, & the consequences of error may be too serious. on the other hand shake off all the fears & servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear … I repeat that you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject any thing because any other person, or description of persons have rejected or believed it. your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable not for the rightness but uprightness of the decision.” – letter to Peter Carr, Paris Aug. 10. 1787
James Madison, 1785, “We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no mans right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance… if Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body…” – on behalf of the citizens of Virginia.
Thomas Jefferson, 1782, “Is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than face or stature … Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advance one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.” – Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII, “Religion”, January 1, 1782 to December 31, 1782
James Madison, 1789, “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 pretence, infringed.” – ANNALS OF CONGRESS 434, June 8, 1789
U.S. Congress, 1789, “Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or infringing the rights of conscience.” 1 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 729–31, August 15, 1789
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/an-overview
Joseph T Farkasdi · April 9, 2019 at 2:53 pm
When someone tells you that taxing the rich only and legislating distribution of wealth is not our nation’s founders’ ideal for the U.S.A., have them read:
Thomas Jefferson, 1785, “But after all these comes the most numerous of all the classes, that is, the poor who cannot find work. I asked myself what could be the reason that so many should be permitted to beg who are willing to work, in a country where there is a very considerable proportion of uncultivated lands?… It should seem then that it must be because of the enormous wealth of the proprietors which places them above attention to the increase of their revenues by permitting these lands to be laboured. I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed. It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.” – Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 28 Oct. 1785, http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s32.html
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2019/01/ocasio-cortez-aocs-billionaires-taxes-hannity-american-democracy.html
AOC Thinks Concentrated Wealth Is Incompatible With Democracy. So Did Our Founders (sort of).
The linked AOC article above is a fairly balanced historical piece. AOC is not inventing something new with her views, and the United States has *always* had socialist considerations in how a federal government needs to regulate wealth and taxes. In his letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson was expressing on the state of the King, who possessed all the wealth, and a poor peasant woman he met, who labored at a pay rate that left her financially and physically suffering, unable to buy bread.