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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGeorge Washington: "To Bigotry No Sanction...To Persecution No Assistance"
In his letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, RI, Washington pledged that the Children of Abraham would not be made afraid in the United States (implicitly contrasting the new nations liberties and personal security with the pogroms of the Old World). It should be noted that Arab Muslims consider themselves, as well, descendants of Abraham through Ishmael:
If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.
The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy-a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.
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, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.
May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants- while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.
http://www.juancole.com/2015/12/founding-fathers-muslims.html
Historic NY
(37,452 posts)mucifer
(23,562 posts)and Washington supported slavery.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)It kind of requires us to discount everything they said, no matter how much we might agree with it.
Bryant
tazkcmo
(7,300 posts)I believe this is exactly what Sec. Clinton is (literally) Banking on. Of course, she doesn't have an entire country's education system indoctrinating the populace so it's not working as well but she is having some success.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)Are you saying that Hillary Clinton is hoping that people take what the founding fathers said uncritically or that they ignore what they said entirely.
Bryant
merrily
(45,251 posts)state legislatures, prompted by the citizenry.
Legislators once paid attention to the citizenry. Good times.
Historic NY
(37,452 posts)You do know Washington freed his slaves...
http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/ten-facts-about-washington-slavery/
The blood letting from 1861-65 still isn't enough but the rubes who thought states rights were more important than human rights, still don't get the drift.
It took another hundred yrs for human rights to be civil rights and still in 2015 we have to debate this, the same rubes never got the message.
merrily
(45,251 posts)are created equal (double irony in that one)....nice to quote if you don't think of what made these men and their words influential to begin with.
That said, anti-Semitism is unquestionably bigotry and it's been especially heartbreaking and disheartening to see it on DU.
madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)Yeah. Says a lot, doesn't it.
merrily
(45,251 posts)to vote. As far as property, a lot of the original land grants had come from the Crown. People who idealize and romanticize our origins do us no favors.
951-Riverside
(7,234 posts)"Excuse me, I've got a slave man to beat and a slave woman to rape before I sell them off to the highest bidder. Wait, why did I just call them "man" and "woman"? Its the late 1700's, we don't consider them to be fully human."
...yeah, the "founding fathers" were violent scumbags.