If you accept Scott Morgan’s assurance that historian Kevin Kruse is not anti-Christianity, then the only other explanation for his weak attempt at revisionist history is that he is an anti-business socialist; a view supported by the pro-union, pro New Deal tenor of Mr. Morgan’s article in the April 8 edition of U.S. 1.
If the Treaty of Tripoli is the only historical evidence Mr. Kruse can offer for his proposition that the concept of the U.S. as a Christian nation is the result of a PR campaign by big corporations, my opinion of the quality of a UNC education has gone down.
The Treaty of Tripoli was signed by the United States in order to stop the Muslim nations of North Africa from privateering U.S. shipping in the Mediterranean. Without a standing navy, the only way to accomplish that goal was through a treaty. Article 11, to which Mr. Kruse refers, does not disavow Christianity as the foundation of our country, but rather attempts to assure Muslims that we had no “enmity against the laws, religions or tranquility” of their nations.
In counterpoint, let me offer some relevant evidence of the intentions of our founding fathers with quotes from their writings:
* The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. — John Adams
* In the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior. The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity. — John Quincy Adams
* The Christian religion, its general principles, must ever be regarded among us as the foundation of civil society. — Daniel Webster.
Bill McJames
Hillsborough
