Written by ©2020 Sarah Becker Separation of Church and State “A nation’s character, like that of an individual, is elusive,” Congressional candidate John F. Kennedy [D-MA] said on July 4, 1946. “It is produced partly by the things we have done and partly by what has been done to us…It is well for us to consider our American character, for in peace, as in war, we will survive or fail according to its measure.” “The informing spirit of the American character has always been a deep religious sense,” Kennedy continued. “Our government was founded on the essential religious idea of integrity of the individual. It was this religious sense which inspired the authors of the Declaration of Independence.” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” “Today [America’s] religious ideas are challenged by atheism and materialism,” Kennedy then concluded. “Inspired by a deeply religious sense, this country…has always met and hurled back the challenge of those deathly philosophies of hate and despair.” “Whilst we assign ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which convinced us,” James Madison wrote in his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance. According to a 2007 Pew Research Study “fully one in four adults under 30 (25%)…describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular.’” The Bill of Rights, Amendment 1, as ratified in 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” Alexandria’s St. Mary’s Catholic Church was first suggested on…
Red Jacket & Religion By Sarah Becker ©2016 In 1754, during the French and Indian War, Benjamin Franklin presented his Plan of the Union to seven colonies at a meeting in Albany, New York. He acknowledged the Iroquois League, its national structure then explained his proposal. His Plan rejected, the Articles of Confederation followed in 1781. “It would be a strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such an union, and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies,” Franklin a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly wrote in 1751. The Iroquois League included six nations or tribes: the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. Seneca Chief Otetiani was born in 1758. A British ally during the Revolutionary War Otetiani was also known as Red Jacket. In the 1770s the British employed him as a messenger. Red Jacket who could not read, write or speak English became famous not only for his oratory—the Seneca renamed him Sagoyewatha—but also his opposition to Christianity and religious conversion. The United States Constitution, as ratified in 1788, gave Congress the power “To regulate commerce…with the Indian tribes.” In 1790 President George Washington nominated Colonel, and soon-to-be Postmaster General, Timothy Pickering to serve as Indian Commissioner. Pickering’s goals: “peace and gradual civilization of the Indians.” George Washington first met Red Jacket, leader of the Six Nations, in Philadelphia in 1792. “One of the General’s greatest wishes was to make peace with the Native American nations bordering the United States,” Mount Vernon historian Mary Thompson said. “As President he frequently welcomed delegations of Indians to the presidential mansion.” “In managing…