So after discovering the Naturalization Act of 1790, I'm forced to reevaluate everything from the founding of America.
Could anyone shed light on what the founding fathers intended by including the Freedom of Religion in the founding of the country? Or give me possible sources to research to figure out for myself?
bump?
dont say it like that. be sure of yourself, like this
>bump
Well what does freedom of religion have to do with the naturalization act?
Also, it's less harsh than one would think.
Asian immigration was basically nonexistent until the West was settled. Women became citizens by having their husband become a citizen, and blacks were not granted citizenship under normal circumstances because they were brought over as slaves. Quite barbaric now but at the time it was simply the way things were.
Local laws pretty quickly superseded the federal law and there were various ways for blacks and Asians to gain citizenship at the local level once a significant portion of said people's actually became free men.
But yes in the end (well more the beginning) everyone was super fucking racist. Irishmen were considered a different race, and a quite inferior one, to Englishmen. And don't even get me started on how the French and Germanics saw each other.
Half the Americans there were descended from people exiled during or after the English Civil War.
but that's what I mean. If the naturalization act made it seem like the founding fathers intended the nation to be white, what could it possibly mean about other aspects of the founding documents? Could it mean that freedom of religion was just for all the christian denominations or just to separate church from state?
It was assumed, but not forced that Anerica would be Christian yes. My interpretation of the freedom of religion clause was that it was to keep any one denomination from becoming so large as to force itself on others, which was a common enough occurance in colonial America.
I don't have anything on hand but Washington talked about the Musslemen, followers of Islam, and how the Bill of Rights offered them freedom to practice, but said he hoped that Anericans would never elect them or find them in a favorable light. Remember of course the Barbary Pirates were running rampant at this moment too.
...
They literally left england because it had no freedom of religion
"Freedom of religion" means Catholics and protestants.
All those words, and they can be destroyed by a single quote.
Then quote it jackass. I have no horse in this race I just hate it when people pull the
>you're wrong and I have proof
>...I'm not gonna present my proof yet
It's called the Treaty of Tripoli famalam.
At that point in time, most people where smart enough to understand that freedom of religion only applied to Christians and that applying that same freedom to other groups would be dangerous.
Yes those dangerous Buddhists.
Then why wasn't it in the Constitution?
Literally every "Christian nation" argument is shredded by a quick look at the Constitution. The only thing they ever bring up is the Declaration of Independence which has "endowed by their Creator" (incidentally the original draft only referred to a "nature's god"), which is not specifically Christian.
>a treaty that was broken and voided within 4 years
>a quote that was never again included in any of the following treaties against barbary pirates
>a quote that didn't even appear in the arabic version
>a quote that was added last minute by some fedorafag that the US hired because he was the only american in the region
>a quote in a irrelevant treaty written without authorization and only came to congress to be signed months after the Barbary pirates signed it and already took half the allotted ransom therefore congress had to either pass it or create a giant stink to have it renegotiated over one phrase
>a treaty handled by John Adam's War Secretary James McHenry whose only recorded opinion of the treaty says "The Senate, my good friend, and I said so at the time, ought never to have ratified the treaty alluded to, with the declaration that 'the government of the United States, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.' What else is it founded on? This act always appeared to me like trampling upon the cross. I do not recollect that Barlow was even reprimanded for this outrage upon the government and religion."
>this is the one shred of evidence that fedorafags build their case
back to r/athiesm
Wow, all of those completely irrelevant points. Apparently despite all of that, the treaty was still good enough to be signed by the president and approved by the Senate.
>one shred of evidence
Ironic coming from you considering that Christianity is not mentioned once in the Constitution. If the US was a Christian nation (as in founded on Christianity, not just having a Christian majority), then it would have been mentioned. The only references to religion are banning religious tests as a qualification for public office, and of course the first amendment. Also, I trust that you can tell the difference between a nation and a state.
Just because certain individuals at the time tried to push a certain religious agenda for their own ends ("tramping on the cross"), doesn't mean that their opinion is gospel. The founding generation was not a monolith, there were plenty of dissenters. And that doesn't just apply to religion, that applies to every topic under the sun.
You make some good points, but he *did* call you a "fedorafag" and tell you to go to Reddit.
Christianity wins again.
America was clearly understood to be a predominantly English-speaking, white, and Christian nation from well before it was officially founded, even if it was never exclusively any of those. Generally speaking the Founding Fathers were against an official established church (it's difficult for modern people to grasp how important the sectarian divisions between Protestant denominations used to be), but they certainly didn't believe it was some sort of secular society as we envision it today.
They probobly also didn't expect that theire secret little freemason club for deists wouldn't remain all-important in american society.
Or that anime would prove that the best governance is by student council.
>predominantly English-speaking, white, and Christian
It still is. Stop listening to /pol/. Besides Mexicans. Fuck 'em.
Well, here is an interesting question.
'Does it matter what the founding fathers thought?'
They are dead, its not their country anymore. Its our country, to rule ourselves by our principals.
>t.jose
One might argue that the foundation they left is solid, and not to fix what ain't broke.
Others might say that they themselves viewed the Constitution as a stop-gap and expected a new one to be written every few decades.
Some think that holding the Founding Fathers in such high regard smacks of papist thinking.