Discussion for article #233246
Can we print out the relevant quote from the Constitution, and throw it in the faces of those who pretend that this is a “Christian country”? It won’t really change their minds, but it does kind of prove that we are in the right. I’m continuously amazed that so many RWNJs believe that there are only two Amendments to the law of the land; the Second and the Tenth. How convenient to ignore the ones you don’t like, no? Sadly, it’s not a buffet line; if you want to live under part of the Constitution, by golly, you’ll live under ALL of it.
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Charles Pinckney knew why the Revolution was fought–although I’m sure he left Blacks and Indians out of his equation.
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Edit: Moors Sundry Act of 1790
Not “Moors Sunday Act”
(good catch though … I am pretty well familiar with the history of the times and this is news to me)
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They have also recently had some controversy at UNC about a building that was named after a former KKK leader.
And UNC and Duke about a building(s) named after slavery era figures
And ECU
Disclaimer, I went to NCSU and I’d bet you could find buildings on that campus that are also named for folks with very strong bias/deeds against race, class, gender, religion, etc., and in every state.
I’m not opposed to changing building names. Unfortunately that’s the history of the US and all mankind.
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Good article.
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Thanks for the comments, all. Pinckney was a slaveowner (his father passed his plantation down to CP), so definitely complex on race (to say the least) as so many framers were. But I still love that ratification debate moment so damn much.
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Hey, Ben Railton- you earned your supper tonight with this article. I will send this, along with the Treaty of Tripoli, and a couple of choice quotes from Jefferson and Franklin regarding religious tolerance, to my elderly (and normally very liberal) father who has recently been on a roll regarding Islam as somehow fundamentally different that other religions.
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we should remember that we’ve been working to live up to our highest ideals—sometimes succeeding, other times failing—for a long, long time.
yes, we should. this country is the world’s longest running experiment in self-representation and inclusion. it’s been a long and bumpy ride, and the smooth section of the road is still a long way off. but we are charged, by those that bequeathed this country to us, to keep working towards that goal.
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Thomas Jefferson, who so many Conservatives used to love before people started reading what he wrote, pointed out that the establishment clause of the first amendment was aimed at allowing Muslims to freely practice their religion in this country.
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In this world, hate has never yet dispelled hate. Only love can dispel hate." ~ Buddha
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We’ve tried. We also hit them with the Treaty of Tripoli, which states emphatically that “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
The treaty was ratified by 23 of the Senate’s 32 members. The remaining nine were absent and did not make the vote. Thus, the treaty was ratified by the unanimous consent of the entire Senate sitting at the time.
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After the Constitution was drafted, Pinckney was tasked with taking it before the South Carolina legislature for that state’s ratification debate. During the debate, he was asked by one of the legislators about that exact Article VI paragraph, and more exactly about whether it would mean that “a Muslim could run for office in these United States?” Pinckney’s answer? “Yes, it does, and I hope to live to see it happen.” His words are inspiring, and a challenge to those who say they believe in inclusion today. How many white, Christian elected officials today would say “I hope to see more Muslim Americans in elected office” the way Charles Pinckney did?
…how many Americans believe that a Moor resides in the White House?
That’s tooooooooo many.
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Does anyone have a citation for this exchange and Pinckney quote?
As it is given here, the quotation is very improbable. No early American would be likely to use the word “Muslim.” They would have said “Mahometan” or possibly “Musselman.”
Certainly some did explicitly defend the idea that non-Christians could hold office; Pinckney could well have been one of them, especially given his role in the Moors Sundry Act. But I’d like to see a source.
Yet the #muslimlivesmatter hashtag that emerged right after the shootings and the father of two of the victims have painted a portrait of a man defined more by Islamophobia than by anything else.
Without, it should be added, much real evidence. If you look at Hicks’ Facebook page, all his religion-related posts (at least going back to October 2013, when I got tired of scrolling) are either about religion in general, or Christianity in particular. He goes after the Christian right for opposing the “Ground Zero mosque”. Even the father admitted he was weirdly obsessive about the parking dispute.
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I wouldn’t be so sure. Things were complicated. Recall that deal the northern states struck with the cotton states wasn’t slavery forever, it was supposed to end after a period of negotiated extension, and it was very much a minority than insisted on continuing to import slavery. Moreover, the Rights of Man process was already underway in England and that was well known and understood in most of the northern and coastal parts of the new USofA. It would have been typical of a man in those days to say he was opposed to the slave trade and to people owning people, but that the cotton states not only had made it a condition of a participation that EVERYONE considered vital to prevent falling back under England in particular but also other European states with imperialist ambitions (fading Austria-Hungary, rising Germany, Spain still, Holland, even France) but that also the cotton states had agreed to the responsibility of settling or resettling their indentured workers (which is so; didn’t MEAN anything, or at least not the same things the north decided to read into it, but still, that’s kinda true).
And the natives were an entirely different matter. It’s like the whole European-based settler class simply ignored the notional issue of natives having rights and treated them more or less uniformly as foreign insurgents who could, if they felt strongly enough about American oppression, just move west. And west. And west. And southwest to whether they were wiped out by Spanish Mexico, and northwest into Canada (which thousands did do). And west - until there was no more west to move west to. And by then, railroad interests owned and ran everything, so what people actually thought no longer mattered.
People living IN the history we later study generally don’t see themselves as acting in the context of history. Sometimes some of them, pols especially, say they are, but they do it for marketing purposes and really don’t see history any better than a blind man sees in an unlit cave.
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Thanks for the comment and good question. I found this exchange a good while back while working with Elliott’s Debates, the multi-volume account of the ratification debates, in the Library of Congress. As I noted and recorded it then, Pinckney was responding to a question from Patrick Calhoun, father of John C.; Calhoun’s question did use the word Mahometan, which I decided here to modernize.
The exchange stood out to me sufficiently when I noted it then that I believe that I read, recorded, and remember it accurately, although unfortunately while writing this piece I wasn’t able to find it documented in the available online transcripts of portions of the ratification debates. That’s a tricky question when it comes to online op eds like this, I guess–if I were including it in a book or even journal article I would probably have to make a trip to DC to confirm from prior notes before including it, but I felt it okay to rely on my notes and memory for this piece.
Hope that helps, and sorry I don’t have an online source for it. Thanks,
Ben
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Interesting. Elliot’s Debates have been digitized by the LOC (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwed.html), though unfortunately they don’t seem to be text searchable.
wow, that’s throws the whole “obama is a socialist muslim from kenya” partially out the door.
Hi All,
Wanted to put in a serious plug for N. Todd Pritsky’s wonderful follow up to this piece:
http://www.dohiyimir.org/2015/02/remember-pinckney-remembering-frequently.html
Great investigations of these particular details (for which, as I noted in a comment above and he reiterates, I have my notes and memory but not a confirming online source), and even better connections of them to many other debates and ideas.
Ben