The Treaty of Tripoli
De-Christianizing America?

Abstract
OF THE ARTICLE THAT WILL SOON APPEAR HERE

Here's what it says:

• Secularists argue that the Treaty of Tripoli says America is not a Christian nation.
• Not all official copies of the treaty even have these words
• The words don't mean what Secularists say they do

Until you send us this article, readers of this page will have to be content with the following dialogue on American OnLine's "Separation of Church and State" Discussion Board.

"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 tranquillity [] of Musselmen [-] and as the said [s]tates never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any M[a]hom[e]tan 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." [Note: corrections to Walker's text by CorumB, based on the photo of the same portion of the Treaty shown at the website]

>The preliminary treaty began with a signing on 4 November, 1796 (the end of
>George Washington's last term as president). Joel Barlow, the American
>diplomat served as counsel to Algiers and held responsibility for the treaty
>negotiations. Barlow had once served under Washington as a chaplain in the
>revolutionary army. He became good friends with Paine, Jefferson, and read
>Enlightenment literature. Later he abandoned Christian orthodoxy for
>rationalism
>and became an advocate of secular government. Barlow, along with his
>associate, Captain Richard O'Brien, et al, translated and modified the Arabic
>version of the treaty into English. From this came the added Amendment 11.
>Barlow forwarded the treaty to U.S. legislators for approval in 1797. Timothy
>Pickering, the secretary of state, endorsed it and John Adams concurred (now
>during his presidency), sending the document on to the Senate.The Senate
>approved the treaty on June 7, 1797, and officially ratified by the Senate
>with John Adams signature on 10 June, 1797. All during this multi-review
>process, the wording of Article 11 never raised the slightest concern. The
>treaty even became public through its publication in The Philadelphia Gazette
>on 17 June 1997.
>
>So here we have a clear admission by the United States that our government
>did not found itself upon Christianity. Unlike the Declaration of
>Independence, this treaty represented U.S. law as all treaties do according
>to the Constitution (see Article VI, Sect. 2).
>
>Although the Christian exclusionary wording in the Treaty of Tripoli only
>lasted for eight years and no longer has legal status, it clearly represented
>the feelings of our Founding Fathers at the beginning of the U.S. government.
>
>So, if you wish to argue that treaties with foreign nations indicate what the
>founders wanted, this friendship treaty with Tripoli is clear indication that
>the founders did not intend to found a "Christian" nation.

The Founders did not intend to "found" a Christian nation. This is true.
America was already a Christian nation. If the Founders intended to found a secular nation, their constitution would have been utterly rejected.

The following historical facts have been taken from David Barton, Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion, 1996. Anyone who has not read the material in Barton's book simply is not qualified to discuss "the separation of church and state."

The words attributed to Washington are totally false ("The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion"). The 1797 Treaty of Tripoli is the source of Washington's supposed statement.

That treaty; one of several with Tripoli, was negotiated during the "Barbary Powers Conflict," which began shortly after the Revolutionary War and continued through the Presidencies of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.[11] The Muslim Barbary Powers (Tunis, Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, and Turkey) were warring against what they claimed to be the "Christian" nations (England, France, Spain, Denmark, and the United States). In 1801, Tripoli even declared war against the United States,[12] thus constituting America's first official war under the Constitution.

Throughout this long conflict, the five Barbary Powers regularly attacked undefended American merchant ships. Not only were their cargoes easy prey but the Barbary Powers were also capturing and enslaving "Christian" seamen[13] in retaliation for what had been done to them by the "Christians" of previous centuries (e.g., the Crusades and Ferdinand and Isabella's expulsion of Muslims from Granada[14]).

In an attempt to secure a release of captured seamen and a guarantee of unmolested shipping in the Mediterranean, President Washington dispatched envoys to negotiate treaties with the Barbary nations.[15] (Concurrently, he encouraged the construction of American naval warships[16] to defend the shipping and confront the Barbary pirates -- a plan not seriously pursued until President John Adams created a separate Department of the Navy in 1798.) The American envoys negotiated numerous treaties of "Peace and Amity"[17] with the Muslim Barbary nations to ensure "protection" of American commercial ships sailing in the Mediterranean.[18] However; the terms of the treaties frequently were unfavorable to America, either requiring her to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars of "tribute" (i.e., official extortion) to each country to receive a "guarantee" of safety or to offer other "considerations" (e.g., providing a warship as a "gift" to Tripoli,[19] a "gift" frigate to Algiers,[20] paying $525,000 to ransom captured American seamen from Algiers,[21] etc.).

The 1797 treaty with Tripoli was one of the many treaties in which each country officially recognized the religion of the other in an attempt to prevent further escalation of a "Holy War" between Christians and Muslims.[22] Consequently, Article XI of that treaty stated:

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 [hatred] against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] and as the said States [America] have never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan 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.[23]

This article may be read in two manners. It may, as secularists do, be concluded after the clause "Christian religion"; or it may be read in its entirety and concluded when the punctuation so indicates.

But even if shortened and cut abruptly ("the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion"), this is not an untrue statement since it is referring to the federal government. Recall that while the Founders themselves openly described America as a Christian nation, they did include a constitutional prohibition against a federal "establishment of religion"; establishing a religion was a matter left solely to the individual States. Therefore, if the article is read as a declaration that the federal government of the United States was not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, such a statement is not a repudiation of the fact that America was considered a Christian nation.

The wording is admittedly ambiguous, especially for those of us in the 21st century. America was indisputably a Christian nation, "enlightened by a benign religion." [See Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address.] But the clergy of America, in contrast to many European nations and their long history of conflict with the Muslims, did not have an official political establishment, and could not order the U.S. government to pursue a holy war against the Muslims. The Treaty was designed to convey an absense of religious or ecclesiastical hostility to the Muslims, and to use it as a statement of domestic church-state law is to abuse the purpose of the Treaty.

Reading the clause of the treaty in its entirety also fails to weaken this fact. Article XI simply distinguished America from those historical strains of European Christianity which held an inherent hatred of Muslims; it simply assured the Muslims that the United States was not a Christian nation like those of previous centuries (with whose practices the Muslims were very familiar) and thus would not undertake a religious holy war against them.

This latter reading is, in fact, supported by the attitude prevalent among numerous American leaders. The Christianity practiced in America was described by John Jay as "enlightened,"[24] by John Quincy Adams as civilized,"[25] and by John Adams as "rational."[26] A clear distinction was drawn between American Christianity and that of Europe in earlier centuries. As Noah Webster explained:

The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion but abuses and corruptions of it.[27]

Daniel Webster similarly explained that American Christianity was:

Christianity to which the sword and the fagot [burning stake or hot branding iron] are unknown-general tolerant Christianity is the law of the land![28]

(Those who attribute the Treaty of Tripoli quote to George Washington make two mistakes. The first is that no statement in it can be attributed to Washington (the treaty did not arrive in America until months after he left office); Washington never saw the treaty; it was not his work; no statement in it can be ascribed to him. The second mistake is to divorce a single clause of the treaty from the remainder which provides its context.)

It would also be absurd to suggest that President Adams (under whom the treaty was ratified in 1797) would have endorsed or assented to any provision which repudiated Christianity. In fact, while discussing the Barbary conflict with Jefferson, Adams declared:

The policy of Christendom has made cowards of all their sailors before the standard of Mahomet. It would be heroical and glorious in us to restore courage to ours.[29]

Furthermore, it was Adams who declared:

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . . the general principles of Christianity. . . . I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature.[30]

Adams' own words confirm that he rejected any notion that America was less than a Christian nation.

Additionally, the writings of General William Eaton, a major figure in the Barbary Powers conflict, provide even more irrefutable testimony of how the conflict was viewed at that time. Eaton was first appointed by President John Adams as "Consul to Tunis," and President Thomas Jefferson later advanced him to the position of "U.S. Naval Agent to the Barbary States," authorizing him to lead a military expedition against Tripoli. Eaton's official correspondence during his service confirms that the conflict was a Muslim war against a Christian America.

For example, when writing to Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, Eaton apprised him of why the Muslims would be such dedicated foes:

Taught by revelation that war with the Christians will guarantee the salvation of their souls, and finding so great secular advantages in the observance of this religious duty [the secular advantage of keeping captured cargoes], their [the Muslims'] inducements to desperate fighting are very powerful.[31]

Eaton later complained that after Jefferson had approved his plan for military action, he sent him the obsolete warship "Hero." Eaton reported the impression of America made upon the Tunis Muslims when they saw the old warship and its few cannons:

[T]he weak, the crazy situation of the vessel and equipage [armaments] tended to confirm an opinion long since conceived and never fairly controverted among the Tunisians, that the Americans are a feeble sect of Christians.[32] (emphasis added)

In a later letter to Pickering, Eaton reported how pleased one Barbary ruler had been when he received the extortion compensations from America which had been promised him in one of the treaties:

He said, "To speak truly and candidly.... we must acknowledge to you that we have never received articles of the kind of so excellent a quality from any Christian nation. [33] (emphasis added)

When John Marshall became the new Secretary of State, Eaton informed him:

It is a maxim of the Barbary States, that "The Christians who would be on good terms with them must fight well or pay well."[34]

And when General Eaton finally commenced his military action against Tripoli, his personal journal noted:

April 8th. We find it almost impossible to inspire these wild bigots with confidence in us or to persuade them that, being Christians, we can be otherwise than enemies to Musselmen. We have a difficult undertaking![35]

May 23rd. Hassien Bey, the commander in chief of the enemy's forces, has offered by private insinuation for my head six thousand dollars and double the sum for me a prisoner; and $30 per head for Christians. Why don't he come and take it?[36]

Shortly after the military excursion against Tripoli was successfully terminated, its account was written and published. Even the title of the book bears witness to the nature of the conflict:

The Life of the Late Gen. William Eaton . . . commander of the Christian and Other Forces . . . which Led to the Treaty of Peace Between The United States and The Regency of Tripoli[37] (emphasis added)

The numerous documents surrounding the Barbary Powers Conflict confirm that historically it was always viewed as a conflict between Christian America and Muslim nations. Those documents completely disprove the notion that any founding President, especially Washington, ever declared that America was not a Christian nation or people.

It takes little effort to convince Americans who are ignorant of America's Christian history that America was intended to be an atheistic secular nation. But it takes more effort to explain away the words of the U.S. Supreme Court:

These and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.

And all of the "organic utterances" cited by the Holy Trinity Court are real and their authenticity unquestioned, in sharp contrast to the elusive Article 11 of a long-ago superceded treaty.

NOTES

[11] Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers, Claude A. Swanson, editor (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1939), Vol.1, p. v.

[12] Glen Tucker, Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the U S. Navy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1963), p. 127.

[13] A General View of the Rise, Progress, and Brilliant Achievements of the American Navy, Down to the Present Time (Brooklyn, 1828), pp.70-71.

[14] Tucker, p. 50.

[15] President Washington selected Col. David Humphreys in 1793 as sole commissioner of Algerian affairs to negotiate treaties with Algeria, Tripoli and Tunis. He also appointed Joseph Donaldson, Jr., as Consul to Tunis and Tripoli. In February of 1796, Humphreys delegated power to Donaldson and/or Joel Barlow to form treaties. James Simpson, U.S. Consul to Gibraltar, was dispatched to renew the treaty with Morocco in 1795. On October 8,1796, Barlow commissioned Richard O'Brien to negotiate the treaty of peace with Tripoli. See, for example, Ray W. Irwin, The Diplomatic Relations of the United States with the Barbary Powers (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1931), p. 84.

[16] J. Fenimore Cooper, The History of the Navy of the United States of America (Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co., 1847), pp. l23-l24. See also A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: 1789-1897, James D. Richardson, editor (Washington, D. C.: Published by Authority of Congress, 1899), Vol. I, pp. 201-202, from Washington's Eighth Annual Address of December 7, 1796.

[17] See, for example, the treaty with

• Morocco: ratified by the United States on July 18, 1787. Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America: 1776-1949, Charles I. Bevans, editor (Washington, D. C.: Department of State, 1968-1976), Vol. IX, pp. 1278-1285;
• Algiers: concluded September 5,1795; ratified by the U.S. Senate March 2,1796. See also, "Treaty of Peace and Amity" concluded June 30 and July 6,1815; proclaimed December 26,1815, Treaties and Conventions Concluded Between the United States of America and Other Powers Since July 4, 1776 (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1889), pp. 1-15;
• Tripoli: concluded November 4, 1796; ratified June 10, 1797. See also, "Treaty of Peace and Amity" concluded June 4, 1805; ratification advised by the U.S. Senate April 12, 1806. Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers: 1776-1909, William M. Malloy, editor (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910), Vol. II, pp. 1785-1793;
• Tunis: concluded August 1797; ratification advised by the Senate, with amendments, March 6, 1798; alterations concluded March 26, 1799; ratification again advised by the Senate December 24, 1799. Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers: 1776-1909, William M. Malloy, editor (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1910), Vol.11, pp. 1794-1799.

[18] Gardner W. Allen, Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1905), pp. 33, 45, 56, 60.

[19] Allen, p. 66.

[20] Allen,p.57.

[21] Allen, p. 56.

[22] (See general bibliographic information from footnote 17 for each of these references)

• Morocco: see Articles 10, 11, 17, and 24;
• Algiers: See Treaty of 1795, Article 17, and Treaty of1815, Article 17;
• Tripoli: See Treaty of 1796, Article 11, and Treaty of1805, Article 14;
• Tunis: See forward to Treaty.

[23] Acts Passed at the First Session of the Fifth Congress of the United States of America (Philadelphia: William Ross, 1797), pp. 43-44.

[24] William Jay, The Life of John Jay (New York:J. &J. Harper, 1833), p. 80, from his "Charge to the Grand Jury of Ulster County" on September 9,1777.

[25] John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport at Their Request on the Sixty-First Anniversary of the Declaration of lndependence (Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1837), p. 17.

[26] John Adams, Works, Vol. IX, p. 121, in a speech to both houses of Congress, November 23,1797.

[27] Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), p. 339.

[28] Daniel Webster, Mr. Webster's Speech in Defense of the Christian Ministry and In Favor of the Religious Instruction of the Young. Delivered in the Supreme Court of the United States, February 10, 1844, in the Case of Stephen Girard's Will (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1844), p. 52.

[29] John Adams, Works, Vol. VIII, p. 407, to Thomas Jefferson on July 3, 1786.

[30] John Adams, Works, Vol. X, pp. 45-46, to Thomas Jefferson on June 28, 1813.

[31] Charles Prentiss, The Life of the Late Gen. William Eaton: Several Years an Officer in the United States Army Consul at the Regency of Tunis on the Coast of Barbary, and Commander of the Christian and Other Forces that Marched from Egypt Through the Desert of Barca, in 1805, and Conquered the City of Derne, which Led to the Treaty of Peace Between The United States and The Regency of Tripoli (Brookfield: Merriam & Company, 1813), pp. 92-93, from General Eaton to Timothy Pickering, June 15, 1799.

[32] Prentiss, p. 146, from General Eaton to Mr. Smith, June 27, 1800.

[33] Prentiss, p. 150, from General Eaton to Timothy Pickering on July 4, 1800.

[34] Prentiss, p. 185, from General Eaton to General John Marshall, September 2,1800.

[35] Prentiss, p. 325, from Eaton's journal, April 8, 1805.

[36] Prentiss, p. 334, from Eaton's journal, May 23, 1805.

[37] Prentiss.

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