America’s 200-Year

War with Terror

The Strange Case of the
Treaty of Tripoli

Gary DeMar
America’s 200-Year
War with Terror
The Strange Case of the
Treaty of Tripoli

Gary DeMar

American Vision Press

Powder Springs, Georgia
America’s 200-Year War with Terror
The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli
Copyright © 2009 Gary DeMar

Published by:
The American Vision, Inc.
3150 Florence Road
Powder Springs, Georgia 30127-5385
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1-800-628-9460

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to
use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical
reviews or articles.

Produced in the United States of America.

 America’s 200-Year
War with Terror

T he opening line of the Marines’ Hymn “From the Halls of

Montezuma” refers to the Battle of Chapultepec, the engage-
ment between Mexican and American armies during the Mexican-
American War in 1847. “When that battle ended, the United States
had won a decisive military victory over General Santa Anna’s Mex-
ican army that was holding Chapultepec Castle, located just west of
Mexico City.”1 “To the shores of Tripoli” commemorates the actions
of the United States Marines and their part in the capture of Derna
on April 27, 1805. It seems that we are still fighting Tripoli, but this

“From the Halls of Montezuma…”

6 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

“to the shores of Tripoli…”

new battle is over the facts and interpretation of history. A single

line in the first Treaty of Tripoli (ratified June 10, 1797) is continu-
ally cited as incontrovertible evidence that our founders self-con-
sciously denied any attachment to the Christian religion, and that
there has always been a radical separation between religion and civil
government. This conclusion is based upon Article 11 of the 1797
Treaty of Tripoli which reads:

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 law, re-
ligion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims],—and as
the said States [of America] never have entered into any
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 7

war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan 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.2

Who would have thought that a long-forgotten treaty would play

such an important role in the debate over religious freedom, justice,
and Christian involvement in politics?
Several anti-Christian groups have used the 1797 Treaty with
Tripoli—which was drawn up in attempt to put an end to raids on
American ships by Barbary Coast pirates—to drive a provocative
wedge into our culture and disrupt the idea that religion played a ma-
jor role in the founding of our nation. The only way the debate can be

Captain Stephen Decatur’s

conflict with the Algerine at
Tripoli during recapture of the
USS Philadelphia in the harbor
of Tripoli (1804)

settled is to survey the historical record. When surveyed, the record

will show that the Treaty of Tripoli does nothing to disturb the prop-
osition that America was founded as a Christian nation.
8 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

The Washington Connection

The phrase “the government of the United States of America is not in
any sense founded on the Christian religion” has been attributed to
George Washington numerous times. A portion of the above quota-
tion found its way into the September/October 1980 issue of Liberty
Magazine, a publication of Review and Herald Publishing Company.
The full-page reproduction of Article XI gives the impression that
George Washington wrote the words. Washington’s signature follows
the excerpted line that reads, “The United States of America is not in
any sense founded on the Christian religion.” As we will see, Wash-
ington neither wrote nor signed the treaty.

“It is the duty of all nations

to acknowledge the provi-
dence of Almighty God, to
obey His will, to be grateful
for His benefits, and hum-
bly to implore His protec-
tion and favor.”
—George Washington

The Encyclopedia of Philosophy concocts a story of how Wash-

ington “acquiesced” to the radical deistic views of Joel Barlow, the
American consul in Algiers, by maintaining that America was not a
Christian nation. Here is how the story is reported:

In answer to a direct question from a Muslim po-

tentate in Tripoli, Washington acquiesced in the decla-
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 9

ration of Joel Barlow, then American Consul in Algiers,

that “the government of the United States of America
is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”3

This excerpt gives the impression that Washington went to Tripoli

and had a conversation with the Muslim potentate where Washing-
ton answered a question relating to America’s religious foundation.
This is pure fiction. As far as we know, Washington had no direct
involvement with the Treaty. He had left office before the Treaty was
signed and had no opportunity to review it.
Norman Geisler, evangelical author of Is Man the Measure and
many other books on Christian apologetics, uncritically accepts the
Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s conclusion concerning the Treaty of
Tripoli and George Washington’s part in it. Geisler states that “our
nation’s founders were largely humanistic (or deistic). . . . There were
few evangelical Christians among the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, John Witherspoon being a notable exception. And

Joel Barlow,
American Consul in Algiers
10 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

when George Washington was asked if the United States was a Chris-
tian country, he replied that ‘the government of the United States
of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.’”4
Geisler offers no evidence that Washington was ever asked this ques-
tion. As subsequent study will demonstrate, Washington never made
a statement even remotely resembling the one being attributed to
him by these scarcely researched articles.
During the 1984 presidential election, People for the American
Way (PAW) aired a commercial entitled “Founding Fathers/Separa-
tion of Church and State.” Noted actor Martin Sheen narrated the
propagandistic segment. Sheen said: “Today the voices evoking re-
ligious dogma have invaded the highest places of government, chal-
lenging the ideas of our Founding Fathers and the separation of
church and state.” What did PAW use to support this claim of the
views of the founding fathers? PAW turned to a chopped quotation
from the Treaty of Tripoli and maintained that they were the words
of George Washington. Sheen continued: “‘The government of the
United States,’ insisted Washington, ‘is not in any sense founded on
the Christian religion or any other religion.’”5 PAW cannot even mis-
quote with integrity. Nowhere does the Treaty of Tripoli contain the
words “or any other religion.”
The issue regarding whether Washington ever said or wrote
that the government of the United States was not founded on the
Christian religion is an old debate. Others more honest than today’s
critics of the Christian America position have called the story of
Washington’s denouncement what it really is—a myth.

There is a myth (and it was revived in 1962 during

the discussion following the Supreme Court’s decision
against the constitutionality of state-sponsored prayers
in public schools) to the effect that Washington once
declared while he was President that the government
of the United States was not a Christian nation.6
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 11

A book dispelling hundreds of similar false quotations and mis-

leading attributions states that “the statement was not Washington’s”
and that diplomats had used that particular phraseology because they
were “eager to make it clear that Christianity was not an American
state religion, and that therefore the U.S. government bore no official
hostility toward Islam.”7 This is as close to the truth as it gets.
The evidence supporting America’s Christian founding is
overwhelming. Those who dispute the claim cannot do it honestly.
They must play fast and loose with the facts because the historical
evidence is so against them. In an address to the Delaware Chiefs on
May 12, 1797, Washington stated: “You do well to wish to learn our
arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ.”8
George Washington stated that “it is the duty of all nations
to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will,
to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protec-
tion and favor.” He went on in his Thanksgiving Proclamation of Oc-
tober 3, 1789, to write, that as a nation “we may then unite in most
humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and
Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other
transgressions.”9 Just above his signature to the United States Con-
stitution, these words appear: “Done in the Year of our Lord . . . one
thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven.” This is a direct refer-
ence to Jesus Christ.

The Adams Connection

Jim Castelli, in an article titled “‘Christian America’: A Myth Keeps
Living On,”10 attaches the name of John Adams to the infamous
phrase. President Adams did sign the Treaty on June 10, 1797, three
days after it was passed by the Senate. However, a study of Adams’
private and public statements show that he believed that Christian-
ity must be rooted within the nation’s culture in order for the nation
to survive. Adams expressed his religious views on numerous occa-
12 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

sions, but his call for a National Fast Day on March 6, 1799, is the
most expressive:

As no truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of

Inspiration, nor any more fully demonstrated by the ex-
perience of all ages, than that a deep sense and a due ac-
knowledgment of the growing providence of a Supreme
Being and of the accountableness of men to Him as the
searcher of hearts and righteous distributer of rewards
and punishments are conducive equally to the happiness
of individuals and to the well-being of communities….
I have thought proper to recommend, and I hereby rec-
ommend accordingly, that Thursday, the twenty-fifth
day of April next, be observed throughout the United
States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fast-
ing, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain, as
far as may be, from their secular occupation, and devote
the time to the sacred duties of religion, in public and
in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses
against the most high God, confess them before Him

“I have thought proper to

recommend, and I hereby
recommend accordingly, that
Thursday, the twenty-fifth day of April
next, be observed throughout the
United States of America as a day
of solemn humiliation, fasting, and
prayer….”
—John Adams
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 13

with the sincerest penitence, implore his pardoning mer-

cy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for
our past transgressions, and that through the grace
of His Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled
to yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous
requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose
to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness
in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so
ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sen-
sible that “righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a
reproach to any people” [Prov. 14:34].11

The “Great Mediator and Redeemer” is Jesus Christ. On another oc-

casion, John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson stating, “The general
principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were … the
general principles of Christianity.”12 A few years later Adams wrote a
letter to Jefferson in which he stated that “Without religion this world
would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite society, I mean
hell.”13 While Washington and Adams did not have any direct hand
in drafting the Treaty, this does not change the fact that the phrase
“As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense
founded on the Christian religion” still needs to be explained.

America’s First War on Terror

Attempts to appease Islamic Muslim radicals by discounting Amer-
ica’s Christian heritage had been tried before. How do we reconcile
the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, which “was negotiated under Washing-
ton, ratified by the Senate, and signed by President John Adams,”14
with the overwhelming evidence of America’s Christian heritage?
Why put such a specific statement regarding the Christian religion
in a treaty with a Muslim nation? Why is this the only treaty that
includes this phrase? It’s easy to understand given the accommo-
dating statements about Islam made by President George W. Bush
14 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

and his cabinet in an attempt to accommodate Muslim nations. The

United States is still attempting to pacify Muslim religious fears.
Consider the following:

[In 2009] the U.S. military is confirming that it has

destroyed some Bibles belonging to an American sol-
dier serving in Afghanistan.
Reuters News says the Bibles were confiscated
and destroyed after Qatar-based Al Jazeer televi-
sion showed soldiers at a Bible class on a base with
a stack of Bibles translated into the local Pashto and
Dari languages. The U.S. military forbids its mem-
bers on active duty—including those based in places
like Afghanistan—from trying to convert people to
another religion.
Reuters quotes Maj. Jennifer Willis at the Bagram
Air Base, north of Kabul, who said “I can now confirm
that the Bibles shown on Al Jazeera’s clip were, in fact,
collected by the chaplains and later destroyed. They
were never distributed.”
According to the military officials, the Bibles were
sent through private mail to an evangelical Christian
soldier by his church back home. Reuters says the sol-
dier brought them to the Bible study class where they
were filmed.
The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ad-
miral Mike Mullen, told a Pentagon briefing Monday
that the military’s position is that it will never “push
any specific religion.”15

Like today, there was a poorly conceived diplomatic reason for the
inclusion of the “Christian religion” phrase. The Treaty of Tripoli is
nothing more than a pronouncement “that ‘the Christian religion’ as
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 15

a formal institution was not a part of the American government in the

same way that the religious structures of Islam are a part of Islamic
governments. From many things that Adams and his contemporaries
wrote it is clear that they did not use the word religion to exclude
Christian ideas or principles as some do today. True, the founders
did not make institutional religion a part of the government. But they
never thought of excluding Christian principles.”16
We must also consider that a Muslim country could not and would
not make a treaty with what it considered to be an infidel (Christian)
nation unless it was a one-way street. Thomas Jefferson, embroiled
in a war with Islamic terrorists in his day, commented, “Too long, for
the honor of nations, have those Barbarians been suffered [permit-
ted] to trample on the sacred faith of treaties, on the rights and laws

The Barbary Area Map

16 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

of human nature!”17 Little has changed since the eighteenth century.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who took office in
August 2005, stated that “Anyone who signs a treaty which recognizes
the entity of Israel means he has signed the surrender of the Muslim
world.” According to the Koran, the United States, like Israel today,
was considered an infidel nation. Ahmadinejad described the current
Islamic relationship between the United States as an “historic war be-
tween the oppressor18 and the world of Islam.” For Ahmadinejad, this
“historic war . . . dates backs hundreds of years.”19
In surveying all the evidence, and taking into account the cir-
cumstances surrounding the necessity for such a treaty, it is not hard
to explain the disputed phrase. The statement in question was to as-
sure a radically religious (Muslim) government that America would
not depose that government and impose Christianity by force. A sin-
gle phrase ripped from its historical context does nothing to nullify
the volumes of historical evidence that Christianity was foundational
to the building and maintenance of this nation.

Muslim Nations versus Christian Nations

In order to understand the statement “As the government of the Unit-
ed States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian
religion,” it must be read in context and with background knowledge
of the religion of Islam. It is obvious by reading the original treaty that
Tripoli considered America to be a Christian nation. In writing an an-
notated translation of the treaty in 1930, Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje of
Leiden, Netherlands, reviewed the Cathcart copy and found numer-
ous statements that clearly show that Tripoli considered America to
be a Christian nation. Here is just one example:

Glory be to God! Declaration of the third article.

We have agreed that if American Christians are travel-
ing with a nation that is at war with the well-preserved
Tripoli, and he [evidently the Tripolitan] takes [prison-
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 17

ers] from the Christian enemies and from the Ameri-

can Christians with whom we are at peace, then sets
them free; neither he nor his goods shall be taken.20

The treaty constantly contrasts “Christian nations“ (e.g., Article VI)

and “Tripoli,” a Muslim stronghold that was used as a base of opera-
tions for Barbary pirates. Muslim nations were hostile to “Christian
nations.” The Barbary pirates habitually preyed on ships from “Chris-
tian nations,” enslaving “Christian” seamen. “Barbary was Christen-
dom’s Gulag Archipelago.”21
In Joseph Wheelan’s well researched and highly readable book
on America’s first war on terror with radical Muslims, we learn that
Thomas “Jefferson’s war pitted a modern republic with a free-trade,
entrepreneurial creed against a medieval autocracy whose credo was
piracy and terror. It matched an ostensibly Christian nation against
an avowed Islamic one that professed to despise Christians.”22 Whee-
lan’s historical assessment of the time is on target. “Except for its Na-
tive American population and a small percentage of Jews, the United
States was solidly Christian, while the North African regencies were
just as solidly Muslim—openly hostile toward Christians.”23
In drafting the treaty, the United States had to assure the Dey
(ruler) of Tripoli that in its struggle with the pirates “it has in itself no
character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Mus-
selmen,” that “the said states never have entered into any war or act
of hostility against any Mehomitan [Muslim] nation” due to religious
considerations. These are the qualifying statements in the treaty that
explain why the phrase “founded on the Christian religion” was used.
A survey of the state constitutions, charters, national pronounce-
ments, and official declarations of the thirteen state governments
would convince any representative from Tripoli that America was a
Christian nation by law. The American consul in Algiers, Joel Barlow,
had to construct a treaty that would assure the Dey of Tripoli that
troops would not be used to impose Christianity on a Muslim people.
18 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

What was Mr. Barlow trying to say? Represent-

ing a nation whose laws do not make heresy a crime,
and which has no established church or official reli-
gion, was he not trying to reassure those of a different
religious and cultural tradition that we, for our part,
had worked out an arrangement between the prevail-
ing religion in America and our government that did
not commit the destiny of that faith into the keeping of
the state? Our government, therefore, could enter into
amicable relationships with nations whose religion dif-
fers from our own.
History supports such an interpretation.24

Tripoli may have feared a crusade-like invasion from the Ameri-

can navy. (Muslims well remembered the Crusades and the ex-
pulsion of Muslims from Grenada by Ferdinand and Isabella of
Spain in 1492.) America was not founded as a Christian nation
in the same way that Libya was founded as a Muslim nation.
“Christianity was not an American state religion and therefore
the United States government bore no official hostility toward
Mohammadanism.”25 The Dey of Tripoli had to be convinced that
America, as a Christian nation, would not impose its religion
on the Muslim people. “Could it have been that in Article 11,
America was assuring Tripoli and all of the Barbary States that
the United States did not have a state church system and would
therefore not attack Tripoli for religious reasons of forced con-
version?”26 This seems to be the best explanation of the phrase
found in Article 11 of the Treaty.
A study of later treaties with Muslim nations seems to support
this conclusion. The 1816 “Treaty of Peace and Amity with Algiers” is
a case in point: “It is declared by the contracting parties, that no pre-
text arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interrup-
tion of the harmony between the two nations; and the Consuls and
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 19

the Agents of both nations shall have liberty to celebrate the rights of
their prospective religions in their own houses.”27

“Too long, for the honor of nations,

have those Barbarians been suffered
[permitted] to trample on the sacred
faith of treaties, on the rights and laws
of human nature! “
—
Thomas Jefferson

There remains a strange curiosity about the original treaty and its
translation.

As even a casual examination of the annotated

translation of 1930 shows, the Barlow translation is
at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of
the sense of the Arabic; and even as such its defects
throughout are obvious and glaring. Most extraordi-
nary (and wholly unexplained) is the fact that Article
11 of the Barlow translation, with its famous phrase,
“the government of the United States of America is not
in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,” does
not exist at all. There is no Article 11. The Arabic text
which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter,
crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant,
from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How
that script came to be written and to be regarded, as
in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as
there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain
so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the
time throws any light whatever on the point.
20 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

The 1805 Treaty

Piracy, kidnapping, and enslaving Christian seamen remained a prob-
lem despite the 1797 Treaty. In addition, Tripoli demanded increased
tribute payments in 1801. Dumas Malone, Jefferson’s biographer,
writes: “Treaties had been made with these petty piratical powers in
the past, all of them calling for what amounted to tribute. The United
States was acting like the other nations with commerce to protect,
but Jefferson had opposed this sort of policy from the time he was in
France, believing that the only effective language to employ against
these brigands of the sea was that of force. He never believed in buy-
ing peace with them, and actually he was the first President to use
force against them. John Adams was not undisposed to do so, but
the Father of the United States Navy stayed his hand because of the
troubles with France.”28

United States Navy

Commander Edward Preble
(1761-1807) blockaded
Tripoli from 1803 to 1805.

When President Jefferson refused to increase the tribute, Trip-

oli declared war on the United States. A United States navy squadron,
under Commander Edward Preble, blockaded Tripoli from 1803 to
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 21

1805. After rebel soldiers from Tripoli, led by United States Marines,
captured the city of Derna, the Pasha of Tripoli signed a treaty prom-
ising to exact no more tribute.
It is important to note that the 1805 treaty with Tripoli differs
from the 1797 Treaty in that the phrase “as the Government of the
United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Chris-
tian Religion” is conspicuously absent. Article 14 of the new treaty
corresponds to Article 11 of the first treaty. It reads in part: “[T]he
government of the United States of America has in itself no character
of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Musselmen.” As-
surances are still offered that the United States will not interfere with
Tripoli’s religion or laws.
It’s obvious that by 1805 the United States had greater bargain-
ing power and did not have to knuckle under to the demands of this
Muslim stronghold.29 A strong navy and a contingent of Marines also
helped. But it wasn’t until Madison’s presidency that hostilities finally
stopped when he declared war against Algiers.30
Those who use the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli as a defense against the
Christian America thesis are silent on the 1805 treaty. For example,
Alan Dershowitz cites the 1797 as “the best contemporaneous evi-
dence” against claims that the United States was founded as a Chris-
tian nation.,31 but he says nothing of the later renegotiated and re-
vised treaty

The Treaties of 1783, 1814,

1822, and 1848
In the December 2005 issue of Mother Jones magazine, the editors
write that Article 11 of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli is “as succinct
a statement as we have from the Founding Fathers on the role of
religion in our government, …and so stands today as an official de-
scription of the founders’ intent.”32 If treaties are going to be used to
establish the religious commitment of America, then it’s essential
22 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

that we look at more than one treaty. In 1783, at the close of the
war with Great Britain, a peace treaty was ratified that began with
these words: “In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trin-
ity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of

John Jay (1745–1829), American

statesman, first Chief Justice of the
United States signed the 1783 treaty
with Great Britain.

the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the
Grace of God King of Great Britain.”33 The treaty was signed by John
Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay. Keep in mind that it was
Adams who signed the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, even though he was
not a Trinitarian.
In 1822, the United States, along with Great Britain and Ireland,
ratified a “Convention for Indemnity Under Award of Emperor of
Russia as to the True Construction of the First Article of the Treaty
of December 24, 1814.”34 It begins with the same words found in the
Preamble to the 1783 treaty: “In the name of the Most Holy and Indi-
visible Trinity.” Only Christianity teaches a Trinitarian view of God.
The 1848 Treaty with Mexico begins with “In the name of Almighty
God.” The treaty also states that both countries are “under the pro-
tection of Almighty God, the author of peace….”35 If one line in the
1797 Treaty of Tripoli turns America into a secular State (which it
does not), then how do the critics deal with the treaties of 1783, 1822,
1805, and 1848? They usually don’t.
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 23

Chris Rodda spends 35 pages on the “Treaties with the Barbary

States” in his book Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternative
Version of American History but never explains why the phrase was
added to the Treaty. It seems rather odd to include such a phrase
explaining what something is not. Furthermore, as Rodda states, “the
President, the Senate, and the people of the United States apparently
accepted without question an official statement that ‘the government
of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the
Christian religion....’” I doubt that “the people” ever saw the treaty.
There surely were many Christians in the Senate. Why didn’t they ob-
ject to the statement? Given the religious nature of all state the con-
stitutions, some of which were explicitly Christian (e.g., North Caro-
lina), it seems rather odd that there were no protestations unless the
statement had the particular purpose assuring a Muslim stronghold
that America did not merge church and state. The language was de-
signed to give assurances to Tripoli that the United States would not
interfere in any way with “the law, religion or tranquility of Mussel-
men.” Rodda writes “that the Muslims in the Barbary states wrongly
assumed that the United States was a Christian nation like the na-
tions of Europe.”36 That’s the point! The Muslims believed, because
of the language of the official documents of the United States—state
constitutions, the use of “the Year of our Lord” in the Constitution,
and calls for national days of prayer and thanksgiving with referenc-
es to Jesus Christ—that America was a Christian nation. How could
they think otherwise? America did not have State churches. This all
explains very well why the statement regarding the “Christian reli-
gion” was added with no protestations.
Rodda offers this “explanation” as to why the “Christian religion”
statement does not appear in the 1805 Treaty: “the events that oc-
curred between 1797 and 1805 made it necessary to rewrite it.”37 But
why? He states that “Tobias Lear left out the phrase ‘is not in any
sense founded on the Christian religion” but claims “there is nothing
significant about this.” How does he know this? If it the phrase was
24 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

significant for Rodda and his fellow skeptics when it appeared in the
1797 Treaty, it seems that leaving it out of the 1805 Treaty had some
significance other than the phrase “was unnecessary, and, with what
was being added, made the sentence too long.”38

When Peace Means War

Thomas Jefferson was a student of the Koran. He owned a two-volume
English translation edition first published in 1734. He understood
that the Koran’s peace initiatives were double-talk and one-sided.
Peace meant the absence of any religious or political opposition. This
is the indisputable history of Islam as historian Paul Johnson argues:

Koranic teaching that the faith or “submission” can

be, and in suitable circumstances must be, imposed
by force, has never been ignored. On the contrary, the
history of Islam from Arabia was followed by the rapid
conquest of North Africa, the invasion and virtual con-

Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Koran

 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 25

quest of Spain, and a thrust into France that carried the

crescent to the gates of Paris. It took half a millennium
or reconquest to expel the Moslems from Western Eu-
rope. The Crusades, far from being an outrageous pro-
totype of Western imperialism, as is taught in most of
our schools, were a mere episode in a struggle that has
lasted 1,400 years and were one of the few occasions
when Christians took the offensive to regain the “oc-
cupied territories” of the Holy Land.39

As early as 1786, Jefferson, who was serving as the ambassador to

France, and John Adams, the Ambassador to Britain, met in London
with Ambassador Abdrahaman, the Dey of Tripoli’s ambassador to
Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress’
vote of funding. Peace would come at a price. If America wanted “tem-
porary peace,” a one-year guarantee, it would cost $66,000 plus a 10%
commission. “Everlasting peace” was a bargain at $160,000 plus the
obligatory commission. This only applied to Tripoli. Other nations
would also have to be paid. The amount came to $1.3 million. But as we
saw above, there was no assurance that the treaties would be honored.
In vain Jefferson and Adams tried to argue that the United States were
not at war with Tripoli. In what way had the U.S provoked the Muslims,

Ambassador Abdrahaman, the Dey of

Tripoli’s ambassador to Britain:
A non-aggressing nation is still
at war with Islam, as long as it
hasn’t embraced Islam.
26 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

they asked? Ambassador Abdrahaman went on to explain “the finer

points of Islamic jihad” to the Koranically challenged Jefferson and Ad-
ams. In a letter to John Jay, Jefferson wrote the following:

The Ambassador answered us that it was founded

on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in
their Koran, that all nations who should not have ac-
knowledged their authority were sinners, that it was
their right and duty to make war upon them wherev-
er they could be found, and to make slaves of all they
could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman
[Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go
to Paradise.41

Abdrahaman was paraphrasing the

Koran’s “rules of engagement” found
in the 47 Surah: “Whenever you en-
counter the ones who disbelieve [dur-
ing wartime], seize them by their
necks until once you have subdued
them, then tie them up as prisoners,
either in order to release them later
on, or also to ask for ransom, until war lays down her burdens.” Un-
less a nation submitted to an Islamic nation, whether it was the ag-
gressor or not, that nation was by definition at war with Islam. Jihad
means “to submit.” A non-aggressing nation is still at war with Islam
as long as it hasn’t embraced Islam. Islam’s goal is to conquer the
world, either by the submission of one’s will or by Allah’s sword.41
When President Jefferson refused to increase the tribute de-
manded by the Islamists, Tripoli declared war on the United
States. A United States navy squadron, under Commander Edward
Preble, blockaded Tripoli from 1803 to 1805. After rebel soldiers
from Tripoli, led by United States Marines, captured the city of
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 27

Derna, the Pasha of Tripoli signed a treaty promising to exact no

more tribute.

The Last American

I am reminded of the sobering messages on the dedication page of J.
A. Mitchell’s The Last American (1889) and the book’s closing words:
“To those thoughtful Persians who can read a warning in the sudden
rise and swift extinction of a foolish people [the Americans] this vol-
ume is dedicated…. Again upon the sea. This time for Persia, bearing
our wounded and the ashes of the dead [last American]; those of the
natives are reposing beneath the Great Temple [U.S. Capitol]. The
skull of the last Mehrikan I shall present to the museum at Teheran.”
It’s no wonder that Jefferson studied the Koran. He realized that if
Americans ever capitulated, the Muslims would be singing “From the
Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of A-mer-i-ca.”

Illustration from The Last American depicting the ruins of the “Great Temple” (U.S. Capitol)
28 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

Notes

1. John Hoyle, “From the Halls of Montezuma. . .,” (April 25, 2009)
2. William M. Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and
Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776–1909, 4
vols. (New York: Greenwood Press, [1910] 1968), 2:1786.
3. Ernest Campbell Mossner, “Deism,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul
Edwards, 8 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 2:334.
4. Norman L. Geisler, Is Man the Measure: An Evaluation of Contemporary Hu-
manism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983), 124–125.
5. Press release from People for the American Way: “Founding Fathers/Separa-
tion of Church and State,” (September 20, 1984), 1.
6. Paul F. Boller, Jr., George Washington and Religion (Dallas, TX: Methodist Uni-
versity Press, 1962), 87. Quoted in M. Kimberly Roberts, The Tripoli Treaty of 1797: Its
Use as a Precedent for Separation of Church and State, submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Public Policy, CBN University,
Virginia Beach, VA, 1986, 7.
7. Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes,
Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 129.
8. George Washington, “Address to Delaware Chiefs,” The Writings of George
Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources: 1749–1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick
(Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1936), 15:55.
9. George Washington, “Proclamation: A National Thanksgiving,” A Compila-
tion of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1902, ed. John D. Richardson,
11 vols. (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1907), 1:64.
10. This article appeared in newspapers across the country on July 4, 1984.
11. John Adams, “National Fast Day,” A Compilation of the Messages and Papers
of the Presidents, 1:284–286.
12. John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1813, in Lester J. Cappon, ed., The
Adams-Jefferson Letters, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press,
1959), 2:339–340.
13. John Adams to Thomas Jefferson (April 19, 1817) in Thomas Jefferson, The
Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial As-
sociation, 1904), 15:105.
14. Mark A. Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George M. Marsden, The Search for
Christian America (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1983), 131.
 The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli 29

15. Fred Jackson, “U.S. military destroys soldier’s Bibles,” OneNewsNow

(May 5, 2009).
16. Gary T. Amos, Defending the Declaration (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth
and Hyatt, 1989), 9.
17. Thomas Jefferson, congratulatory letter to Lt. Andrew Sterett (1760–1807).
Quoted in Joseph Wheelan, Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror, 1801–
1805 (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003), 102
18. The Christian United States.
19. Golnaz Esfandiari, “Israel should be ‘wiped off the map’: Iran President
(October 27, 2005).
20. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1796e.asp
21. Stephen Clissold, The Barbary Slaves (New York: Barnes & Noble, [1977]
1992), 4. The 1815 Treaty of Peace and Amity with Algiers includes the following in
Article XV: “On a vessel or vessels of war belonging to the United States anchoring
before the city of Algiers, the Consul is to inform the Dey of her arrival, when she
shall receive the salutes which are, by treat or custom, given to the ships of war of
the most favored nations on similar occasions, and which shall be returned gun for
gun; and if, after such arrival, so announced, any Christians whatsoever, captives
in Algiers, make their escape and take refuge on board any of the ships of war, they
shall not be required back again, nor shall the Consul of the United States or com-
manders of said ships be required to pay anything for the said Christians.” (Malloy,
Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the
United States of America and Other Powers, 1:7).
22. Wheelan, Jefferson’s War, xxiii.
23. Wheelan, Jefferson’s War, 7.
24. The Remnant, “Memorandum No. XXXIII,” Irvington-on-Hudson, NY:
Foundation for Economic Education (September 22, 1965), 2.
25. Boller, George Washington and Religion, 23. Quoted in Roberts, The Tripoli
Treaty of 1797, 87.
26. John W. Whitehead, “The Treaty of Tripoli,” The Rutherford Institute (Janu-
ary/February 1985), 11.
27. Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agree-
ments Between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1:15.
28. Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805 (Boston:
Little, Brown and Company, 1970), 4:97–98.
29. Michael Beschloss mentions the fact that “a treaty favorable to the United
States was signed in 1805,” but says nothing about the 1797 treaty with its accom-
30 America’s 200-Year War with Terror

modationist language. (American Heritage Illustrated History of the Presidents

[New York: Times Books, 2000], 58).
30. Lewis Lord, “Pirates!,” U.S. News & World Report (February 25/March 4,
2002), 50.
31. Alan Dershowitz, America Declares Independence (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley
& Sons, Inc., 2003), 64. Also see Noll, et al., The Search for Christian America, 79; Jim
Walker, “This Happy State,” Liberty Magazine (July/August 2002); Rob Boston, “Joel
Barlow and the Treaty with Tripoli: A Tangled tale of Pirates, A Poet and the True
Meaning of the First Amendment,” Church & State Magazine (June 1997).
32. “The Great Debate of Our Season,” Mother Jones (December 2005), 26. The
article is also available online at www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/12/
great_debate.html
33. Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agree-
ments between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776–1909, 1:586.
34. Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agree-
ments between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776–1909, 1:634.
35. Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agree-
ments between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776–1909, 1:1107.
36. Chris Rodda, Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of
American History, vol. 1 (New Jersey: published by the author, 2006), 301.
37. Rodda, Liars for Jesus, 315.
38. Paul Johnson, “‘Relentlessly and Thoroughly’: The Only Way to Respond,” Na-
tional Review (October 15, 2001).
39. Paul Johnson, “‘Relentlessly and Thoroughly’: The Only Way to Respond,” Na-
tional Review (October 15, 2001).
40. Quoted in Wheelan, Jefferson’s War, 40–41.
41. Robert Spencer, The Truth about Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most
Intolerant Religion (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2006) and Robert Spencer, The Politi-
cally Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) ( Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2005).