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The revered September 15, 1790 issue of the Gazette of the United States. The back story…
July 1, 2024 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
We are very proud to offer the most significant American newspaper with Jewish content, in which Washington assured the congregation of the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, that the United States “…gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance…”, perhaps the more famous utterance by a President in the establishment of religious freedom.
The newspaper is the “Gazette Of The United States” dated September 15, 1790, published in New York at the time. To fully appreciate its significance, we offer the following “back story” to this issue containing both Seixas’ letter of welcome to Washington,
and Washington’s response to the congregation of the Touro Synagogue.
Upon his election as President, many churches, congregations, and religious societies wrote to George Washington to congratulate him on his new office, and he replied to each of them with personalized messages of thanks for their well-wishes. In his reply to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Washington applauded the people of the United States for rejecting the European practice of religious “toleration,” embracing instead the “large and liberal policy” that religious liberty is a natural right — and not a gift of government — which all citizens are equally free to exercise.
In 1790, George Washington visited Rhode Island to acknowledge the state’s recent ratification of the Constitution and to promote passage of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. As was the custom, when Washington visited Newport, he was met by a delegation of citizens, who read messages of welcome. One of those who welcomed Washington was Moses Seixas, the warden of the Touro Synagogue in Newport. Touro is the oldest synagogue building in America and the only one existing from the colonial era. In his welcome, Seixas gave thanks to “the Ancient of Days, the great preserver of men” that the Jews, previously “deprived … of the invaluable rights of free Citizens” on account of their religion, now lived under a government “which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”
Washington was moved by Seixas’ letter. The president’s response differentiated between religious toleration and religious liberty, as it specifically applied to American Jews. Washington wrote that Americans “have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy – a policy worthy of imitation . . . It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”
Washington’s reply set a significant precedent that separated a more passive practice of tolerance, from the more potent one of liberty. Even the most liberal European states such as the Netherlands had policies that merely tolerated non-Protestants. In alluding to the Bible’s Old Testament, Washington unequivocally called for religious equality for Jews stating that “the Children of the Stock of Abraham . . . shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree.”
Notably, Washington imitated Seixas’s phrasing in his reply in writing that the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” requiring only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” The president’s reply made loyalty to country, as opposed to Protestant allegiance, the prerequisite for religious equality.
This letter was written during Washington’s first term as President and is Washington’s clearest statement of religious tolerance. It is considered a steppingstone for the First Amendment that would come the following year in 1791 and is considered a foundational document establishing Washington’s belief in the separation of church and state.
