What the Intolerant Can Learn From George Washington

In August 1790, America was a new nation with a new constitution and a new government, one unlike any other conceived in world history. And the country had a war hero for its first president, a man the country knew and loved. A one-page thank-you letter written by George Washington on August 18 that year would set the course of religious liberty and tolerance in America and pave the path for the passage of the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.

The story of how that letter—Washington's Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Rhode Island—came to be reflects not just his character and ideals but also his new nation's.

America's first president understood the importance of visiting the people of the new constitutional republic he was leading, as well as the power of the first three words of the newly ratified constitution: we the people. He spent a good deal of time making ceremonial tours of the nation, visiting the people of the states he had been chosen to serve.

The first nine states, the number required for the Constitution's ratification, had been reached by June 1788, and the Constitution became effective in March 1789. On April 30, 1789, Washington took his oath of office at Federal Hall in New York City.

Washington was the wonder of his era, a man who repeatedly achieved the improbable. He built an army from nothing, defeated the world's greatest empire, willingly walked away from power, presided over an unprecedented constitutional convention and was unanimously elected by the Electoral College to be the new republic's first president.

Rhode Island was the last of the holdout states, ratifying the Constitution in May 1790. Washington understood the gravity of the moment, visiting the Ocean State on August 18 not only to acknowledge the state's ratification of the Constitution but also to promote the passage of the Bill of Rights.

When Washington arrived in Newport, he was greeted with an outpouring of affection. Among those welcoming him was Moses Seixas, warden of Newport's Touro Synagogue. The congregation likely numbered in the hundreds at the time, and the number of Jews in the new nation was no more than 2,000 in a country of nearly 4 million. Calling Jewish Americans a minority, at half of 1 percent, would be an understatement.

Seixas also understood the gravity of the president's visit and took it upon himself to write a letter to Washington on behalf of his congregation. "Permit the children of the stock of Abraham to approach you with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person and merits and to join with our fellow citizens in welcoming you to Newport," the letter began.

Seixas was just getting started. "He continued with an analogy, comparing the Revolutionary War with the struggles of the ancient tribes of Israel and likened Washington to King David," according to the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, which is in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Seixas then began his short but powerful appeal on behalf of his congregation—and all American Jews—referencing the history of Jewish persecution around the world and throughout history:

Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People—a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance—but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship: deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language equal parts of the great governmental Machine...

Seixas closed his letter with a prayer for the new president:

For all these Blessings of civil and religious liberty which we enjoy under an equal benign administration, we desire to send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days, the great preserver of Men beseeching him, that the Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised Land, may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life: And, when, like Joshua full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.

"Washington was moved by these sentiments," the National Library for the Study of George Washington said. "On the same day, he responded to the expressions of gratitude with his letter strongly affirming the principles of freedom of religion."

Washington's reply to Seixas' plea would be the clearest statement on the subject by a nation's leader in world history. Unlike so many nations, past and present, ruled by kings and despots who tolerated the Jewish faith, Washington, incorporating some of Seixas' own language, proclaimed:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as it if 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.

Washington, revealing his reverence for Scripture, addressed the Jewish people specifically:

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.

Washington's speedy and personal reply was itself significant: It demonstrated his view that the president in rights and under law is the equal of the citizens and was elected to serve them rather than have them serve him. Most important, the leader of America, himself an Anglican in an overwhelmingly Christian country, addressed the Jewish people as equals.

Washington concluded his letter with a prayer of his own. These may be the most beautiful words he would ever write:

May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.

Washington's letter no doubt affected public sentiment, as did his tours of the nation in support of the Bill of Rights. On December 15, 1791, three-fourths of the states ratified the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. And there in the First Amendment was the very first freedom protected from government interference, ahead of freedom of speech or the press, freedom of assembly or the right to petition the government: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

America was and still is a refuge for religious people around the world. And a refuge for atheists and agnostics too. We have George Washington and our founders—and Moses Seixas too—to thank for it. And two letters written on the same summer day back in 1791.

Vince Benedetto is the founder and president of the Bold Gold Media Group. A graduate of the Air Force Academy, he is an avid historian and head of the Churchill Society of Pennsylvania.