Spellberg, Denise A.

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Could a Muslim - or a Catholic or a Jew - Be President? A 1788 Constitutional Debate - Not Even Pasthttps://notevenpast.org/could-muslim-or-catholic-or-jew-be-president-1788-constitutional-debate/[6/8/2020 1:15:28 PM]"The past is never dead. It's not even past." William FaulknerNOT EVEN PAST     THE PUBLIC HISTORIANMore from The Public HistorianBOOKSMore BooksDIGITAL HISTORYCould a Muslim – or a Catholic ora Jew – Be President? A 1788Constitutional Debateby Denise A. SpellbergThe Constitution’s ban on religious tests prompted the nation’s first debate in 1788 about whether aMuslim – or a Catholic or a Jew – might one day become president of the United States.  WilliamLancaster, a delegate to the North Carolina convention to ratify the Constitution, worried: “But let usremember that we form a government for millions not yet in existence. I have not the art of divination. Inthe course of four or five hundred years, I do not know how it will work. This is most certain, that Papistsmay occupy that chair, and Mahometans may take it.”Lancaster asserted these future fears of a “certain” Catholic or Muslim president on July 30, 1788 as partof a day-long debate on the Constitution’s Article VI, section 3: “… no religious Test shall ever be requiredas a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”  His views are preserved as thefinal utterance in the most detailed attack on – and defense of – a uniquely American ideal of religiouspluralism, one that included Muslims at the founding. Like 678TweetMaking History: Houston’s “Spirit of theConfederacy”May 06, 2020America for Americans: A History ofXenophobia in the United States byErika Lee (2019)April 20, 2020Más de 72: Digital Archive ReviewBOOKS FILMS & MEDIA THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN BLOG TEXAS ABOUTSTUDENTSOUR/STORIES15 MINUTE HISTORYCould a Muslim - or a Catholic or a Jew - Be President? A 1788 Constitutional Debate - Not Even Pasthttps://notevenpast.org/could-muslim-or-catholic-or-jew-be-president-1788-constitutional-debate/[6/8/2020 1:15:28 PM]More from Digital HistoryFILMS & MEDIAMore from Films & MediaThomas Jefferson’s 1764 copy of The Koran (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress)The Constitution’s no religious test clause, intended to end strife among Protestants of varieddenominations, also theoretically ended exclusive Protestant control over federal appointed and electedoffices. An Anti-Federalist, Lancaster and the majority of delegates to the North Carolina convention,opposed not just all non-Protestant participation in the federal government but the Constitution itself.(Anti-Federalists would eventually defeat ratification by a landslide 184 to 84 vote.) Henry Abbot, an Anti-Federalist, worried at the beginning of the day’s debate that Protestant rights of conscience were notsufficiently protected: “They suppose that if there be no religious test required, pagans, deists, andMahometans might obtain offices among us…”For Federalists in North Carolina, support for the Constitution thus also included an inadvertent defense ofthe political equality of Muslims, Catholics, and Jews. James Iredell, later appointed to the Supreme Courtby President George Washington in 1790, countered Abbot’s anxieties in the 1788 debate. He includedMuslims in his country’s new blueprint: “But it is to be objected that the people of America may, perhaps,choose representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and Mahometans may be admittedinto offices. But how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religiousfreedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for?”March 16, 2020Ayka (Dir: Sergei Dvortsevoy, 2018)October 02, 2019Could a Muslim - or a Catholic or a Jew - Be President? A 1788 Constitutional Debate - Not Even Pasthttps://notevenpast.org/could-muslim-or-catholic-or-jew-be-president-1788-constitutional-debate/[6/8/2020 1:15:28 PM]TEXASMore from TexasJames Iredell, a prominent Federalist and Supreme Court Justice who expressed support for theincorporation of Muslims into American society (Image courtesy of the U.S. Government)Iredell’s universally inclusive stance shocked his listeners. At the time, there were 2,000 Jews in theUnited States and 25,000 Catholics; both were despised minorities. Catholics were perceived asdangerous because of their past persecution of Protestants in Europe and their allegiance to the Pope. Allthe delegates to the North Carolina ratification convention were, by law, Protestant, but seemingly nonewere aware of the thousands of enslaved West African adherents of Islam then in the United States.The Muslim slave Omar ibn Said, for example, lived in Fayetteville, North Carolina from 1811 until hisdeath in 1863, two years before the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution would have granted himhis freedom. Omar is famous for writing his autobiography in Arabic, which is preserved still. A mosque inFayetteville now bears his name. James Iredell, a slave owner, might argue for the rights of future Muslimcitizens in theory, but even he assumed these “Mahometans” remained an exclusively foreign population. The majority of Americans associated Muslims with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ottoman Turkishmilitary incursions in Europe. North African pirates remained a more immediate problem for Americans. In1784, they began seizing American commercial shipping in the Mediterranean, left defenseless withoutBritish naval protection it the wake of Independence.A (Queer) Rebel Wife In TexasMarch 11, 2020Could a Muslim - or a Catholic or a Jew - Be President? A 1788 Constitutional Debate - Not Even Pasthttps://notevenpast.org/could-muslim-or-catholic-or-jew-be-president-1788-constitutional-debate/[6/8/2020 1:15:28 PM]Omar ibn Said, a Muslim slave from Fayetteville, North Carolina (Image courtesy of UNC UniversityLibraries)At home, the fate of all non-Protestants, Muslims, Catholics, and Jews remained linked together in debateon the Constitution. The idea of Muslims and Jews as citizens with rights was not invented in the UnitedStates. John Locke, the English political theorist, first asserted the possibility in his 1689 tract ontoleration. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson, who considered Locke his hero, copied this precedent: ““he sais‘neither Pagan nor Mahomedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealthbecause of his religion.’”  What Jefferson noted in Locke as theory, James Iredell first asserted in actualpolitical debate in support of a Constitution that legally protected the equality of male Muslim, Catholic,and Jewish believers.If you’d like to learn more: The complete transcript of the North Carolina debate may be found online in Elliot’s Debates, The Debate in the Several StatesConventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, volume 4, pp. 191-215, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwed.html.This brief discussion is based on the author’s article “Could a Muslim Be President? An Eighteenth-Century ConstitutionalDebate,” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 39, no. 4 (2006), pp. 485-506 and her forthcoming book, Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an:Islam and the Founders, which will be published by Knopf in October 2013.Posted March 24, 2013More 1400s to 1700s, Blog, Discover, Politics, Religion, Slavery/Emancipation, United StatesCould a Muslim - or a Catholic or a Jew - Be President? A 1788 Constitutional Debate - Not Even Pasthttps://notevenpast.org/could-muslim-or-catholic-or-jew-be-president-1788-constitutional-debate/[6/8/2020 1:15:28 PM]19th century 20th Century African American History american history Asia Asia & Middle East book review Brazil British Empire China Civil War Cold War Colonialism communism cultural history digital history Early Modern Europe Europe film gender history History of Science immigration India Islam Latin America Latin American History Mexico Not Even Past Public History race religion Russia slavery Texas Texas History Texas History Day Transnational Twentieth Century History United States US History USSR Womens History world history World War IINOT EVEN PAST is produced byThe Department of HistoryTHE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN We are supported by the College of Liberal ArtsAnd our READERSDONATECONTACTAll content © 2010-present NOT EVEN PAST and the authors,unless otherwise notedSign up to receive bi-weekly email updatesBOOKS FILMS & MEDIA THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN BLOG TEXAS

Could a Muslim – or a Catholic or a Jew – Be President? A 1788 Constitutional Debate

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Could a Muslim – or a Catholic or a Jew – Be President? A 1788 Constitutional Debate

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