Serious concern about the Treaty of Tripoli

[Malachi151]

I just want to warn you on this treaty. It was adopted initially, however, the treaty was broken, there was a war, and a new treaty was made in 1805. The new treay was based on the old treaty and was changed, removing the clause about not being founded on Christianity, etc.

You can view it here:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/treatytripoli.htm

However, as you will notice, this is just a presentation of a treaty that was drafted in Algiers and signed by the Muslims. The treaty was drafted by an American though.

I have found record of its ratification, however I cannot find a copy of the exact form it was ratified in and therefor I an still not 100% convinved that it was adopted in the form that it was presented.

I also found an 1805 Treaty with Tripoli in which the 11th Article has been changed. It is now the 14th Article and it no longer states that the US of A is not founded on the Christian religion.

You can see it here:

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=002/llsp002.db&recNum=703

Therefore, I am not so sure about how much weight should be given to this treaty. If hard pressed, for example is a legal situation, this could well go the other way. I have not been able to secure any copy of this treaty with the presidents signature on it in the form with the statment about Christianity.

Not having this, as I said, I'm still not too comfortable with this treaty as a part of a case for America not being founded on Christainity.

So anyway, this is just a word of caution about this treaty, I wouldn't go boasting too loudly about it IMO. I'm still not sure how I am going to address the treaty on my website yet.

Anyone with serious expertise (as in professional) in this area please speak up.

[Toto]

The significance of the Treaty is not its status as a treaty, but as a piece of legislation that was voted on by Congress stating that the United States is in no sense a Christian nation.

Joel Barlow And The Treaty With Tripoli: A Tangled Tale Of Pirates, A Poet And The True Meaning Of The First Amendment (http://members.tripod.com/~candst/boston4.htm)

In the end, how Article 11 got into the Treaty is less important than the reaction it received in the United States. As Borden notes, "What is significant about the Tripoli treaty is . . . its ready acceptance by the government. Not a word of protest was raised against Article 11 in 1797 . . . . Whatever their personal feelings on the question of religious equality for non-Christians in particular states, all concurred that Article 11 comported with the principles of the Constitution."

In the Senate, the treaty barely caused a ripple. According to The Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the United States Senate, the treaty was read aloud on the floor of the Senate and copies were printed for the senators. No discussion or argument about the document was recorded, and the vote in favor was unanimous.

In recent years, some "Christian nation" advocates have argued that Article 11 never appeared in the treaty. They base the claim on research conducted by a Dutch scholar, Dr. C. Snouk Hurgronje, published in The Christian Statesman in 1930. Hurgronje located the only surviving Arabic copy of the treaty and found that when translated, Article 11 was actually a letter, mostly gibberish, from the bey of Algiers to the ruler of Tripoli.

But Hurgronje's discovery is irrelevant. There is no longer any doubt that the English version of the treaty transmitted to the United States did contain the "no Christian nation" language. Article 11 appeared intact in newspapers of the day as well as in volumes of treaties and proceedings of Congress published later, including the Session Laws of the Fifth Congress, published in 1797, and in a 1799 volume titled The Laws of the United States. In 1832 Article 11 appeared in the treaty when it was reprinted in Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States 17891815, Volume 11- a tome that can still be examined today at the Library of Congress.

Furthermore, in Hunter Miller's definitive 1931 work on treaties, Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America, he notes that "the Barlow translation is that which was submitted to the Senate ....it is the English text which in the United States has always been deemed the text of the treaty." It's clear that the English version of the treaty, which Congress approved, contained the famous Article 11. Why the article was removed from the Arabic version of the treaty, who did it and when remains another mystery.

[Malachi151]

Well this makes me feel a little better, however I wish I could find an image of it with Adams' signature.

[StrictSeparationist]

Playing devil's advocate here, but couldn't the complete lack of discussion about the Treaty signal that it was given little or no attention by the Senate at the time it was ratified? Isn't it at least plausible that no one actually caught the bit about not being a Christian nation?

[Toto]

Things get slipped into 600 page tax bills. But a clause stating that the US is is no way a Christian nation? That was read aloud on the floor of the Senate? They couldn't have all been drunk at the time.

[StrictSeparationist]

Things get slipped into 600 page tax bills. But a clause stating that the US is is no way a Christian nation? That was read aloud on the floor of the Senate? They couldn't have all been drunk at the time.

Fair point. It does astound me, however, that no one lodged an objection at the time, especially considering that the proportion of Christian to non-Christian Congressmen at that time must have been even higher than it is today. To be clear, though, there wasn't exactly any big show of support for the phrase at the time, was there?

[Malachi151]

The treaty was introduced on May 26. It was then tabled for discussion and a comission for two men was formed to explore the treaty. They came back on June 7 and reported that they deemed it acceptable.

The vote was 23 yeas in favor (small group).

[BruceWane]

The treaty was introduced on May 26. It was then tabled for discussion and a comission for two men was formed to explore the treaty. They came back on June 7 and reported that they deemed it acceptable.

The vote was 23 yeas in favor (small group).

The treaty was read aloud, in its entirety, before the vote. After all, it was only a couple of pages long. The era of 600 page tax bills with who-knows-what tucked inside is now, not then.

23 yeas in favor was everyone present - and remember that at that time, the senate didn't have 100 members like now, so it's not really a small number at all. Not sure how many states we had at that time......

Also of note is the fact that the day after approval, the treaty was published in the major newspapers of the day - Boston, New York, Philadelphia, etc. There was no public uproar noted at all.

As far as a later treaty not including this statement, it doesn't matter. The subsequent treaty didn't address this issue at all. If the subsequent treaty specifically rescinded the previous statement, that would be something, but it doesn't do that. Apparently, it was not an issue that either Tripoli OR the US felt a need to address, probably because the US government was a few years older at that point, thus more established and well known to be a secular government, so Tripoli no longer had any fear of religious war.

[Buffman]

Malachi151

You may find the following useful:

http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/june_july97/tripoli.html

(Extracts)
A more important instance of the helpfulness of Article XI involved Oscar S. Straus (1850-1926) who was U.S. Minister to Turkey (1887-89 and 1898-1900) and Ambassador to Turkey (1909-10). In the Spring of 1899, at the beginning of the war with Spain, it was discovered that there were Moslems in the Philippines who might start a Holy War against the United States. Mr. Straus gained an audience with the Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid, and requested him as Caliph of the Moslem religion to act against this possibility. The Sultan sent a message to the Sulu Moslems of the Philippines forbidding them to fight the Americans as no interference with their religion would be allowed under American rule. The move was successful, and President McKinley sent a personal letter of thanks to Mr. Straus saying he had saved at least 20,000 American troops in the field.

Mr. Straus in his autobiography, Under Four Administrations (1922, p. 147) told how he accomplished this important diplomatic achievement: "In order to be able to take up the matter very fully with the Sultan, I had anticipated all kinds of questions and armed myself with pertinent information. Among them I thought he might seek some assurance as to our Government's attitude toward Mohammedanism, and to reassure him I had come prepared with a translation into Turkish of Article XI of an early treaty between the United States and Tripoli, negotiated by Joel Barlow in 1796 . . . When the Sultan had read this, his face lighted up. It would give him pleasure, he said, to act in accordance with my suggestions, for two reasons: for the sake of humanity, and to be helpful to the United States." It was fortunate indeed that Mr. Straus had the English version of Article XI translated into Turkish for this occasion rather than submit to the Sultan the supposed Arabic version of this Article already in the treaty!

To Representative Hiestand the discrepancy between the Arabic and English texts of Article XI invalidates the authenticity of this Article and what it says about the United States not being founded on the Christian religion. But it should be remembered that it was the Barlow version which was read by President Adams and the Senate and ratified by them. The American government, if not the Tripolitan, agreed that the government of the United States is not founded on the Christian religion.

John Adams, in his proclamation of the treaty, said he had "seen and considered the said Treaty" and "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, had agreed to accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof." And even though the Barlow translation leaves much to be desired, the fact remains that it has been printed in all official and unofficial treaty collections since it appeared in the Session Laws of the Fifth Congress (1797) and in The Laws of the United States, edited by R. Folwell (1799). Article VI of the United States Constitution made this treaty doubly binding by saying: "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Thus Article XI was made valid for the United States, and it should now be treasured as a basic document for the American doctrine of the separation of Church and State.
(End extracts)

The vote was 23 yeas in favor (small group).

Not when compared to the number of sworn Senators.

This next URL contains all the basic research information you desire. Contact them to get a personal photocopy. Don't forget to request a copy of the attached Pres. Adams note.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1796t.htm

(ADDED)

Perhaps the most accurate discussion of this Treaty/issue can be found at this URL:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1796n.htm#n1

(Note "The United States Ratification and Proclamation" section.)

[diana]

Article VI of the United States Constitution made this treaty doubly binding by saying: "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Thus Article XI was made valid for the United States, and it should now be treasured as a basic document for the American doctrine of the separation of Church and State.Thanks for quoting that, Buffman. I'd never drawn that connection.

d

[Shake]

As Toto and BruceWane mention above, it would appear that the phrase was initially introduced for political reasons. We were making assurances that religion would not be an issue in the US government's position.

This all sounds awfully familiar. It seems to resonate with the article in this thread (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=80749) about why Newdow should win his case.

Dubya is not helping us internationally in this respect.

[Buffman]

Shake

I am more inclined to believe that Joel Barlow placed the Article 11 statement into the Treaty for philosophical as well as political reasons. He had become a convert to Deism and was a close personal friend of Paine and Jefferson.

http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/b/barlow1718.htm

(Extract)
In 1792 he was made a French citizen. Thomas Paine had become his friend in England, and during Paine's imprisonment in Paris Barlow effected the publication of The Age of Reason.
(End extract)

The "Age of Reason" was first published in 1794. The Tripoli Treaty came several years later.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~barlow/Pressrelease.html

(Extract)
After the French Revolution turned into the Terror, Barlow came to the aid of his friend Tom Paine as he was being arrested, smuggling the manuscript for The Age of Reason to safety and having it published.
(End extract)