not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion

The right’s contention that we are a “Christian nation” that has fallen from pure origins and can achieve redemption by some kind of return to Christian values is based on wishful thinking, not convincing historical argument. Writing to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1790, President Washington assured his Jewish countrymen that America “gives… bigotry no sanction.” In a treaty with the Muslim nation of Tripoli initiated by Washington, completed by John Adams, and ratified by the Senate in 1797, the Founders declared that “the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…” Washington’s expansive view of liberty also extended to those Christians who felt shut out of the mainstream. When American Catholics wrote him asking for “the equal rights of citizenship, as the price of our blood spilt under your eyes,” Washington agreed, replying: “As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government.”


American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation by Jon Mecham. Random House. 2006. p.18, 19