Washington, Eisenhower, Grant, Bush II: The American Tradition of Religious Tolerance

For Independence Day, we might consider a brief passage from Chief Justice Roberts’ Trump v. Hawaii majority opinion. Yes, the opinion glosses over the anti-Muslim intent behind President Trump’s revised “travel ban.” But Roberts spends a moment recalling far better examples of religious tolerance shown by our presidents than exhibited by Mr. Trump. The following brief passage is a direct quote:

The President of the United States possesses an extraordinary power to speak to his fellow citizens and on their behalf. Our Presidents have frequently used that power to espouse the principles of religious freedom and tolerance on which this Nation was founded.  In 1790 George Washington reassured the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island that “happily the Government of the United States . . . gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance [and] requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.” 6 Papers of George Washington 285 (D. Twohig ed. 1996). 

President Eisenhower, at the opening of the Islamic Center of Washington, similarly pledged to a Muslim audience that “America would fight with her whole strength for your right to have here your own church,” declaring that “[t]his concept is indeed a part of America.”  Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 28, 1957, p. 509 (1957). 

And just days after the attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush returned to the same Islamic Center to implore his fellow Americans—Muslims and non-Muslims alike— to remember during their time of grief that “[t]he face of terror is not the true faith of Islam,” and that America is “a great country because we share the same values of respect and dignity and human worth.”  Public Papers of the Presidents, George W. Bush, Vol. 2, Sept. 17, 2001, p. 1121 (2001). Yet it cannot be denied that the Federal Government and the Presidents who have carried its laws into effect have—from the Nation’s earliest days— performed unevenly in living up to those inspiring words.

I add to this list President Ulysses Grant. He issued an order as a Union general to oust every Jewish soldier from his command. He came to regret it, and showed his remorse by showing up to dedicate a synagogue while he was president.

Happy Independence Day. May we remember our nation’s origins as diverse groups of people who fled religious persecution to be immigrants in a new land.  

Photo Credit: PragerU