The Treaty of Tripoli & United States Founding Fathers Separation of Church & State

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I'm currently reading a book on The Barbary Wars by Frank Lambert. Linkeh.

It's quite fascinating; read it.

Anyway, Frank debunks the war being a religious war and puts forward an extremely strong argument about the war primarily being about trade. To back this up, he references article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli.



Article 11 reads:

Art. 11. 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 Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This is self explanatory. The religious right wing republicans often say the country was founded on Christian values/principles/the founding fathers were Christian.

I believe this has been discussed on here before, but I couldn't really find evidence of the Tripoli Treaty being referenced.

Lets go further. The rest of this post is a copy pasta from a three year old reddit post.

Thomas Jefferson's Wall of Separation Letter.

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

John Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration.

Quotes:

Thomas Jefferson wrote:

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose." - to Baron von Humboldt, 1813
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law." -letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814

George Washington wrote:

"Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by the difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be depreciated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - letter to Edward Newenham, 1792
"Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself." -Thomas Jefferson, in his private journal, Feb. 1800

Benjamin Franklin wrote:

"In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it."
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." -in Poor Richard's Almanac
"I looked around for God's judgments, but saw no signs of them."
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."

James Madison wrote:

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." -letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774
"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries." -1803 letter objecting use of gov. land for churches

Thomas Paine wrote:

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."
"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. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
"The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion."

This may not mean a whole lot to you, but I live in America and I constantly butt heads with people over the founding fathers and religion.

Gbear

I always kind of went along with the argument that "of course they weren't religious - America was not founded as a christian nation".

While that is the case, what never really occurred to me is that the basis on which the country was founded isn't really relevant.

If it had been a despotic **** hole that had state-mandated baby-eating, would the founding fathers still deserve reverence?

I think the whole argument says a lot about the fetishisation of the constitution, the state and the founding fathers in the US.

Ultimately the virtues of the constitution should be discussed on merit and not longevity.

Incidentally, as constitutions go, it is pretty good though.

vibe666

There was good and bad in all of it tbh.

They were good keeping religion in churches where it belonged, but they all seemed pretty keen on slavery because it got sh1t done, so nil points on that.

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vibe666 wrote: »

There was good and bad in all of it tbh.

They were good keeping religion in churches where it belonged, but they all seemed pretty keen on slavery because it got sh1t done, so nil points on that.

That point is also discussed in the book I recommend above. It simply was a time when slavery was the norm. In 1790 there were 697,624 slaves in America as compared to about 3,000 in Algiers. How could the United States condemn the Barbary States for holding a few hundred enslaved Americans when Americans themselves owned hundreds of thousands of slaves? The irony was not lost on U.S. commentators who recognized that any condemnation of slavery on the Barbary Coast must also be leveled against the American South.

expectationlost

who said they were religious wars

Manach

My understanding of the doctrine, based on an academic course, is that it was due to the various sides in the their first civil war, commonly known as the American War of Independence. The colonies were split along Pro and Anti Independance lines with a large proportion in the middle keeping their heads down. The Antis(Loyalists) had a high number of Anglicans amongst their number. So after losing the war, numerous measures were put in place to ensure they did not pose a threat to the nascent US. Amongst those was the Separation of Church and State.

recedite

The Barbary wars were to put an end to piracy in the area. It was bound to happen eventually.
These guys, often called "turks", had been raiding up as far as Iceland for hundreds of years, looking for slaves and plunder. They even took over Baltimore in West Cork once, and took away almost the whole population as slaves. Perhaps it would be a large town or a city by now if that had not happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Baltimore

nagirrac

The founding fathers of the US were by and large deists rather than theists, as is clear from their writings, Jefferson and Paine in particular. They believed in a god of nature and not the god of the bible or any other holy book. They were products of the enlightenment and had seen how divisive and sectarian religion was, and wanted religion to play no part in their newly independent state. It's really as simple as that.

Bannasidhe

recedite wrote: »

The Barbary wars were to put an end to piracy in the area. It was bound to happen eventually.
These guys, often called "turks", had been raiding up as far as Iceland for hundreds of years, looking for slaves and plunder. They even took over Baltimore in West Cork once, and took away almost the whole population as slaves. Perhaps it would be a large town or a city by now if that had not happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Baltimore

I have published on the Sack of Baltimore. The raid there was carried out by a former Dutch privateer who converted to Islam - many did as, for men at least, Islam allowed a great deal of social mobility whereas in Christian Europe ones status in society was pretty fixed (with the exception of Tudor England where clever, cunning and ambitious men like Tom Cromwell and William Cecil could and did acquire great power but this says much about the Tudor monarchs distrust of the 'traditional' aristocracy).

The original target appears to have been Dungarven but local fishermen who were taken hostage guided the raiding party to Baltimore - which was an English colony well known as a pirate den. The fishermen were executed for their role...

Barbary pirates were active throughout the Mediterranean but rarely ventured as far north west as Ireland - having said that there are records of Gaelic Irish having been taken but no one was interested in that - a few less mere Irish being seen as a good thing by the powers that be.
Cornwall was repeatedly hit and at one point a Barbary fleet sailed up the Thames. It was a serious economic threat to European trade.

Now, there was a Jihad aspect to it all - the whole thing really kicked off after the Spanish Re-Conquista in 1492 and the expulsion of the 'Moors' back to North Africa...they were not best pleased at that. A modern day analogy would be Cuban-Americans who feel they have been forcibly exiled from their homeland and will do everything to undermine the current Cuban government. They considered it a 'holy' war fought using economic measures but documents from Arab sources show many also believed they were saving the souls of the children they captured. Children were a popular target and many of these boys grew up to become loyal Janissaries.

As for women - that is an interesting one. White women were prized objects of desire - sub-Saharan women were treated pretty much how we today would consider slaves to have been treated.
Both groups of women were slaves but one group were the servants of the other...
Also, we must consider how appalling life actually was for women in Early Modern Europe - they simply had no rights so in many cases women who had no choice as to husband or 'lifestyle' who were living a brutal existence in some backwater like Baltimore suddenly found themselves in a Harem being waited on hand and foot and should they birth a baby boy to their owner could earn their freedom and, it happened, end up being the mother of a Caliph.

BTW - I managed to track down two of the Baltimore slaves - two women who were ransomed back...only to die in poverty in England.

Jan Janssen/Marat Rais also raided Reykjavík a few years before Baltimore.

Edit to add : Forgot to mention that one of the Tories fave tunes 'Britannia rules the Waves' was written as a defiant response to, what was, a very serious problem - it was an aspirational piece of PR designed to strengthen the resolve of the British. As were the much publicised after the event- but in reality very occasional and usually privately funded- attempts to ransom people back via 'back channels' while at the same time government was insisting 'one doesn't negotiate with terrorists'. Most of the poor feckers who did get back were treated with suspicion and either became 'circus freaks' for a media circus or died in abject poverty.