In mid-August 1790, the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, sent a letter to George Washington, welcoming the president to the city. Written by Moses Seixas on behalf of "the children of the stock of Abraham," the letter alludes to past persecutions of Jews around the world and trumpets the new nation's commitment to religious liberty.
Moses Seixas was a first-generation American whose parents had emigrated from Portugal. He'd risen to prominence in Rhode Island as warden of Newport's Touro Synagogue of Congregation Jeshuat Israel. He was also co-founder of the largest bank in Rhode Island, which had recently ratified the U.S. Constitution, the last former British colony to do so.
By way of reply, George Washington echoed Moses Seixas' words, and added some of his own, a gesture still remembered in the Jewish communities of this country, and by all those who cherish religious liberty.
"It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights," Washington wrote. "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 [act] as good citizens."
The two letters were published side by side in Jewish bulletins that summer, and in several secular newspapers as well. Reinforced by George Washington, Seixas's original formulation, "To bigotry … no sanction, to persecution no assistance," became the credo of a new people.
Was it imperfectly understood and implemented? This was a time of slavery, after all, and a time when women were not allowed to vote, so imperfectly is an understatement.
But those words were the cornerstone of the people Americans were to become, even if it took a Civil War and two centuries to bring it about. Yet as anti-Jewish hate raises its ugly head in our land today -- and as the brave Bari Weiss reminded us in a recent speech titled "The State of World Jewry" -- they are words that must be repeated with each generation.
The next paragraph after the "to bigotry, no sanction" passage in George Washington's 1790 letter reads like a toast, or maybe a blessing. Either way, it's our quote of the week:
"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 everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon
