Albert Pike did not found the Ku Klux Klan

The quoted texts excerpted under the heading of "Misinformation" are taken from a posting to the Usenet newsgroup alt.freemasonry on Tuesday, 19 January 1993 from John Covici, reposted pseudonymously by Nomen Nescio on Monday, 11 September 2000 and later uploaded to the anonymously maintained Freemasonry Watch website. The facts are noted on the far right. The order of presentation is dictated by the original posting.

Although easily disproven as either maliciously mendacious or wilfully ignorant, the texts have been extensively used on at least two anti-masonic websites online since mid-2006.   

Albert Pike did not found the Ku Klux Klan
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Claims have been made that Albert Pike was a high ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan. This is a claim that is impossible to either substantiate or disprove. Research into primary source material will reveal that there isn't any primary source material.

The only writings that would come close to qualifying as a primary source is a booklet written by one of the Klan founders, Captain John C. Lester, in 1884, comprising his reminiscences fifteen years after the fact. The only name noted in Lester’s book is one reference to "Gen. Forrest".

It was not until Dr. Walter L. Fleming republished Lester’s booklet in 1905 that a list of names of key Klansmen was included in a preface. In 1924, Ms. Susan L. Davis published her Authentic History, in which she contradicts a number of points made by Lester, denigrates Fleming for his superficial knowledge of the Klan and condemns Lester’s co-author, David L. Wilson, for suggesting the Klan had failed.

Any other book or article promoting Albert Pike’s association with the Klan will either cite Fleming or Davis, cite other authors who cite Fleming or Davis, or not cite anyone. Both Fleming and Davis accepted, unquestioningly, the fifty year old reminiscences of several of the founding members of the Klan. There is no source documentation, corroborating evidence or other testimony to implicate Albert Pike with the Klan. Pike had been dead fourteen years when Fleming first published, and was in no position to address the issue.

There are several separate claims. First, that Albert Pike was the founder of the Ku Klux Klan; second, that he was a member, or leader, of the Klan; third, that he was a racist; and fourth, that Freemasonry is the current reincarnation of the Klan. The following notes will demonstrate that his leadership role or membership is strictly hearsay, that his racism, while nothing to be proud of, was mild by his contemporaries' standards and that any accusation that Freemasonry is a Klan front, or vice versa is completely unsubstantiated and unfounded.

MISINFORMATION FACT
  
First they [freemasons] eliminate all "documents"   Although Klan records are being stolen, there is no proof or evidence that freemasons have been party to these thefts.
It is noteworthy that the author of these accusations, who is from Vancouver, B.C., quotes from Fleming’s out of print and rare Ku Klux Klan, a book that has been missing from the Vancouver Public Library since September of 2000.

"...even the Library of Congress was a victim to something that was happening all over the nation: rare Klan books and files are being stolen. The problem has been increasing over the past seven years, and the clipping files of local libraries and newspapers are especially vulnerable. (The historic KKK clipping file once held by the Kokomo Tribune, for example, is now missing.)"

All those who write critically of Freemasonry are anti’s and all anti’s are frauds, liars, zealots, or extremists and cannot be accepted.   This is the author’s accusation of Freemasonry’s attitude. Freemasonry doesn't claim this.
  
in the jacket cover of most masonic books is typed that the books MUST be returned to the Lodge if the owner dies.   Generally, only lodge ritual books or Monitors are expected to be returned to the lodge upon the member’s demit, expulsion or death. Certainly, no history texts are so designated. The first printings (1871-1881) of Pike’s Morals and Dogma carried the proviso: "Esoteric Book, for Scottish Rite use only; to be returned upon withdrawal or death of recipient." This was dropped in most editions printed after 1881.
  
It is called historical revisionism.   Historical revisionism generally takes one of two forms: changes in understanding of past events in the light of new, more accurate research; or changes in interpretation of past events to promote particular political or ideological agendas. The first, sometimes termed historiographical revisionism, is a legitimate pursuit of historians. The second, less a form of revision than of denial, utilizes the omission of contradicting evidence, and occasionally outright fabrications — and has given the popular use of the term revisionism an unsavory connotation.

In the case of the American Civil War and Reconstruction: "Revisionism draws its strength from three decades of hard research, from an impressive array of scholarly articles and monographs, from modified ideas about race, and from a changed social climate."

"Professional educators announced early in 1981 that they would inaugurate a major effort to stop the Klan from recruiting in public schools. ...their agreement on a revision of Reconstruction history was a significant move...."

and of course nothing an "Anti" says or writes is acceptable to a Mason. Logicians term this "Circular Reasoning" and furthermore classify Circular Reasoning as a Fallacy.   Fallacies are errors or flaws in reasoning. This statement might be a fallacy of circular definition (where the definition includes the term being defined as a part of the definition), or it might be a fallacy of distraction by damning the origin, or even an ad hominem attack, but circular reasoning is another name for "begging the question," where assumptions are accepted without proof. This claim is an example of circular reasoning since no proof is given that Freemasonry or all freemasons hold this view. Our reference to the Vancouver Public Library above is both a logical fallacy of innuendo and a causal fallacy. But it felt good.
  
Pike wasn't just any Freemason he was the head of the Supreme Council which has defacto control of the Entire World Wide Masonic Movement.   Annually elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Southern Supreme Council, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, from 1859 until his death in 1891, his work was not considered regular Freemasonry by many Grand Lodges at the time. He never held any elected Grand Lodge office. There are over 200 independent and sovereign masonic jurisdictions around the world. Neither he, nor the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction have or had any administrative or ritualistic influence on any Grand Lodge or Orient.
  
High Degree Masonic Membership of the Leadership of the Old and New Klans

William Joseph Simmons

  That some members of the 1920s revived Klan were also freemasons cannot be denied. "While its influence in local lodges probably varied widely, the infiltration of the Klan was noticeable enough that most Grand Masters, prompted by unfavorable public opinion and dismay over the dissension the Klan was promoting within Masonry, found it necessary to make a statement either condemning the Ku Klux Klan or denying Masonry’s connection with it."

Membership in a concordant body that confers additional degrees is no indication of authority within Freemasonry.

William Joseph Simmons, organizer of the 1915 Klan revival, was a "member of two different churches, he also joined the Masons, Knights Templars, Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, and eight other lodges. He was a good promoter for the Woodmen."5 There is no record of his having held masonic office.
  
KKK had openly advertised in newspapers for new recruits specifying that masons were preferred   That at least one Kleagle directed one advertisement at freemasons doesn't demonstrate that Freemasonry was associated with the Klan.

"Kleagles also hung around other fraternal lodges and were especially successful at wooing the Masons. Many Kleagles were Masons themselves. (In fact the King Kleagle of Wisconsin put an ad in the August 26, 1921, edition of the Madison State Journal, reading:'"Wanted: Fraternal organizers, men of ability between the ages of 25 and 40. Must be 100% Americans. Masons preferred.') Most importantly, however, Kleagles were told to sell the Klan in a way that most appealed to the community."6

  
The letter that the head of the Supreme Council wrote about a Roman Catholic President in 1960 in the official newsletter of the Scottish Rite - New Age Magazine   "Luther A. Smith, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, told his readers:

"Whatever bigotry is in evidence in the United States is exhibited solely by the Roman Catholic hierarchy; that the Canon Law of the Roman Church and the directives of the Pope validate the fears of the people that the dual allegiance of American Catholics is a present danger to our free institutions, and lastly that the people in passing upon the qualifications of a Catholic candidate for the Presidency will be guided by their knowledge of history and their great store of plain old-fashioned common horse sense, and their innate caution not to gamble when their liberties and the national security are at stake.

Among American citizens there should be no question or suspicion of allegiance to any foreign power, but in the case of the Roman Catholic citizen, his church is the guardian of his conscience and asserts that he must obey its laws and decrees even if they are in conflict with the Constitution and laws of the United States."

He later wrote:
Our thanks and appreciation go to the thousands who have encouraged us with their plaudits for what we did for their greater enlightenment and understanding of the question: 'Why would it be unwise to elect a Roman Catholic President of the United States?'"7

Inappropriate as posing such a question might be by current standards, this does not imply that the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction supported the Klan, nor does it have any relevance to Albert Pike’s alleged involvement a century previous.
  
...the non-recognition as "regular" of Black only Prince Hall lodges  Prince Hall Grand Lodges have no bar based on race. Of the 51 Grand Lodges in the USA, 42 currently recognize Prince Hall Freemasonry. Of the ten Grand Lodges of Canada, all recognize Prince Hall Freemasonry.
The Grand Lodge of British Columbia, in 1946 adopted a statement of Basic Principles for Grand Lodge Recognition. It requires a recognized Grand Lodge to have "no debarment from membership because of nationality, of race, of color, of sectarian or political belief...."
  
It was in 1905 that the Neale Publishing Company, New York and Washington, published Ku Klux Klan: Its Origin, Growth and Disbandment, written and edited by Walter L. Fleming, incorporating earlier published material by J.C. Lester and D.L. Wilson. Historian Walter Fleming’s introduction to this 1905 book explains that he has been given "information in regard to Ku Klux Klan, by many former members of the order, and by their friends and relatives." Dr. Fleming states that "General Albert Pike, who stood high in the Masonic order, was the chief judicial officer of the Klan." On a page of illustrations of important founders of the KKK, Dr. Fleming places General Pike’s portrait in the center, makes it larger than the six others on the page, and repeats this information as a caption: "General Albert Pike, chief judicial officer".   The first work about the Klan, Ku Klux Klan: Its Origin, Growth and Disbandment was written in Tennessee in 1884 as a 119 page apology and justification for the Klan, by one of the founders, Captain John C. Lester and a non-Klansman, Rev. D.L. Wilson. Walter L. Fleming added notes and an introduction for the 1905 edition. Fleming provides no quotes from Albert Pike or other corroborating references.

In a note of acknowledgment Fleming thanks a number of people, including Major James R. Crowe and Major S. A. Cunningham, for their assistance. The source of his information regarding Pike is not cited. [p. 27.]

The plate facing page 19 displays seven images over the title, "Some Klansmen." The first photograph is of D.L. Wilson, who was not a Klansman. The central image is not a photograph, but appears to be a pen and ink tracing of a photograph of Albert Pike in Scottish Rite regalia, found as a frontispiece to many editions of his Morals and Dogma (see top of page). Although slightly larger than the six photographs, its size and position need not have any significance other than an attempt at balanced design. The photographs appear to be reproductions of newspaper or magazine clippings. No attribution or citation is noted.

The title of Chief Judicial Officer does not appear in the Prescript of the Order, under Article I, Titles; Article V, Judiciary; or elsewhere. [pp. 153-176.] The title also does not appear in the 1868 Revised and Amended Prescript.

Strongly influenced by the Dunning School, Fleming wrote four monographs, one dissertation, and two articles on the Ku Klux Klan.8 Both Fleming’s Civil War and Reconstitution in Alabama and The Sequal of Appomattox contain chapters on the Klan’s history and administration; nowhere does he mention Albert Pike.
  
It was in Nashville that Albert Pike and other Confederate generals met in 1867 to form a southern states-wide terrorist KKK, expanding the little project they had started two years before in Pulaski, Tenn.

Major James R. Crowe   The original Klan was started sometime between Christmas 1865, and June 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee by Major James R. Crowe of the fourth Alabama Volunteers, Richard R. Reed, Calvin E. Jones, John C. Lester and Frank O. McCord, editor of the Pulaski Citizen who had served in the Tennessee Infantry, and Captain John B. Kennedy. None served under General Albert Pike.

A plaque in Pulaski, listing the six founders, commemorates "Ku Klux Klan organized in this, the law office of Judge Thomas M. Jones, December 24th, 1865."

In April 1867, when the Pulaski Den called a reorganizational meeting in Room 10 of the Maxwell House in Nashville, General George Gordon composed the Prescript or pamphlet of rules. This meeting coincided with a public nomination meeting for Democratic candidates for the fall election. According to Wyne Craig Wade, on Morton’s testimony, it was several weeks later that Captain John W. Morton offered the position of Grand Wizard to Nathan Bedford Forrest.

This is contradicted by Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr. (1864/01/11 - 1946/04/03) who claimed that Forrest was elected Grand Wizard at the Nashville meeting, after having taken an oath from Captain Morton in a secluded valley outside the city earlier the same day. Pike’s presence is not noted by Dixon or Wade. Neither Pike’s name nor that of John C. Brown, George Gordon or Nathan Forrest appear in the regular listing of hotel arrivals in the Nashville Republican Banner. 9

On December 23, 1865, Pike was in Little Rock Arkansas. Although Pike was editor of the Memphis Appeal in 1867-1868, and therefore was in Tennessee, there is nothing to connect him with the Klan meeting in Nashville. 

  
As owner-publisher of the Memphis, Tennessee, Daily Appeal, Albert Pike wrote in an editorial on April 16, 1868: "With negroes for witnesses and jurors, the administration of justice becomes a blasphemous mockery. A Loyal League of negroes can cause any white man to be arrested, and can prove any charges it chooses to have made against him. ...The disenfranchised people of the South ... can find no protection for property, liberty or life, except in secret association.... We would unite every white man in the South, who is opposed to negro suffrage, into one great Order of Southern Brotherhood, with an organization complete, active, vigorous, in which a few should execute the concentrated will of all, and whose very existence should be concealed from all but its members."

  That Pike reflected the prejudices of his time and place does not prove that he belonged to the KKK or was a leader. This call for action appeared in a public newspaper during an election year while the Union League of America, or "Lincoln’s Legal Loyal League," was promoting negro suffrage, disenfranchisement of Confederates and the repudiation of state rights. Without the full, unexpurgated text, it is not possible to know if this quote is an accurate reflection of Pike’s intended meaning. Walter Lee Brown, as noted below, interpreted the full editorial as a criticism of the Klan. Pike later wrote:

I am not one of those who believe slavery a blessing. I know it is an evil, as great cities are an evil; as the concentration of capitol in a few hands, oppressing labor, is an evil; as the utter annihilation of free-will and individuality in the army and navy is an evil; as in this world everything is mixed of good and evil. Such is the rule of God’s providence, and the affairs of the world. Nor do I deny the abuses of slavery.****Necessarily it gives power that may be abused. Nor will I under-rate its abuses. It involves frequent separation of families. It, here and there, prevents the development of a mind and intellect*****. Marriage does not create an indissoluble bond among the slaves. It gives occasion to prostitution. The slave toils all his life for mere clothing, shelter and food; and the last is heard sometimes upon the plantations, and in rare cases, cruelties punishable by the law are practiced.

  
Dr. Walter Fleming designates Confederate Major James R. Crowe as the pre-eminent source for his 1905 KKK History, and describes Crowe as one of the original KKK founders in Pulaski. Fleming says that Major Crowe "held high rank in the Masonic order." In his honor roll of "well-known members of the Klan," Dr. Fleming places "General John C. Brown, of Pulaski, Tennessee" and "Colonel Joseph Fussell, of Columbia, Tennessee."   In his Note of Acknowledgement, Fleming cites nine people whose assistance was of "especial value." That Crowe is mentioned first does not imply he was a pre-eminent source.

Although Crowe served as Most Illustrious Grand Master of the Crypic Rite of Tennessee in 1886, this office confers no power or rank in regular Craft Freemasonry.
  
General Brown and Colonel Fussell, like Major Crowe, are identifiable as soldiers of Albert Pike’s masonic order. General Brown had been a master mason in the Pulaski lodge for 15 years when the KKK was formed there, and became grand master of Tennessee Masons and governor of Tennessee during the Klan’s era of power. Colonel Fussell was commandant of Tennessee’s masonic Knights Templar during the Klan rule. The preceding masonic information is taken from Tennessee Templars: A Register of Names with Biographical Sketches of the Knights Templar of Tennessee by James D. Richardson.   Brown’s and Fussell’s masonic careers are clearly documented. The claim that they were Klan leaders is only based on the word of Crowe. There is no other documentation. Pike had no authority over the Grand Lodge of Tennessee.
  
This James D. Richardson was himself the Commandant of Knights Templar and Grand Master of Masons in Tennessee, and was speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives during the era of the Klan power. This same James D. Richardson was Albert Pike’s successor as commander of the southern Scottish Rite masons.   Richardson (March 10, 1843 - July 24, 1914) was Speaker of the Tennessee Legislature in 1871, State Senator in 1873 and Congressman from 1884 until 1904.

He was elected Grand Commander in October 1901, succeeding Judge Thomas H. Caswell. Pike had died ten years previous in 1891.

There is nothing to associate him, in any fashion, with the Klan.
  
Susan Lawrence Davis' 1924 Authentic History, Ku Klux Klan, 1865-1877, repeats the pattern Fleming created in 1905, revealing Pike’s KKK role but treating him and the Klan sympathetically. The Davis book was written to celebrate the new, 20th-century KKK, which was just then staging full-dress mass marches in Washington and northern cities such as Detroit. In her chapter on General Pike’s leadership of the Klan, Miss Davis applauds Pike’s clever stewardship of the KKK secret organization. She reproduces in her KKK history an oil portrait of Albert Pike given to her for the KKK book by Pike’s son.   Published at the height of the Klan revival, before its 1925 collapse, this book provides no source for any claim for Albert Pike’s leadership role in the Klan other than the self-serving undocumented notes of John C. Lester and claims of James R. Crowe. Davis' self-published work has no academic credibility.

This painting by Charles Loring Elliott is actually in the possession of the The Supreme Council, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, USA in Washington, DC. Davis may have been given a reproduction, but she never posessed the original.
  
In his book, The Tragic Era, Claude Bowers, who served many years as the U.S. ambassador to Spain and to Chile, described Albert Pike as one of the handful of distinguished, respectable founders of the KKK and the Klan’s leader in Arkansas.   Heavily influenced by the views of the Dunning School, Bowers is not creditable. He cites no reference for this claim.

  
The same is true of other book-length histories of the Klan and numerous published biographies of Albert Pike: Pike’s role as Klan leader or KKK boss of Arkansas is discussed....   No references cited. Fred W. Allsopp’s Albert Pike, A biography [Parke-Harper Company, Little Rock, Ark.: 1928] doesn't mention the Klan. Dr. Walter Lee Brown’s four-volume dissertation A life of Albert Pike states that in a newspaper editorial written by Pike on April 16, 1868, he "left the impression that he neither belonged to the organization nor considered it worthy of his support." [Fayetteville :

University of Arkansas Press, 1997. 610 p. : ill. ; 27 cm. LoC: 019116]. Neither Thomas Edwards Hatch (Albert Pike, 1891), Horace Van Deventer (Albert Pike; a biographical sketch, 1910), James T. Tresner II (Albert Pike : the man beyond the monument, 1995), nor Claire C. Ward (Albert Pike year book) refer to Pike’s alleged Klan membership.

Although The Ku Klux Klan : an encyclopedia by Michael and Judy Ann Newton, [1991, ISBN: 0-8240-2038-3] notes on page 464, "Pike was also identified as an early Klansman and co-author of the KKK’s original prescripts." their citation is Allen W. Trelease, who referenced the discredited Susan L. Davis in noting "Pike may well have affiliated with the Klan..." 

  
"Prominent Southern gentlemen were later cited as state leaders of the Invisible Empire. Alabama claimed General John T. Morgan as Grand Dragon. Arkansas was headed by General Albert Pike, explorer and poet. North Carolina was led by former governor Zebulon Vance, and Georgia by General John B. Gordon, later a U.S. Senator.


John B. Gordon   The full quote:

After the Klan had spread outward from Tennessee, there wasn't the slightest chance of central control over it—a problem that would characterize the Klan throughout its long career. Prominent Southern gentlemen were later cited as state leaders of the Invisible Empire. Alabama claimed General John T. Morgan as Grand Dragon. Arkansas was headed by General Albert Pike, explorer and poet. North Carolina was led by former governor Zebulon Vance, and Georgia by General John B. Gordon, later a U.S. Senator . But the leadership of these men, originally appointed by Memphis officials, was usually in name only and nowhere lasted longer than 1869; such experienced veterans quickly realized the impossibility of governing in secret such widespread bands of young hellions and wanted no responsibility for it.

Wade’s source of this reference is Susan L. Davis who had no source documentation other than the claims of John C. Lester and James R. Crowe. Note that Wade does not claim Pike was a Klan leader — only that he had been later cited as one.
  
Albert Pike also wrote extensively on a number of racialist topics,frequently extolling the virtues of the Aryans and their imagined history and religion which he tried to show was the precursor of Freemasonry in is numerous Published Works, including seperate ones on just that very subject alone. It would seem that Pike was a dedicated Racial "Scientist".   Pike wrote three manuscripts on the Aryans, Irano-Aryan Theosophy, Sanscrit, the Vedas and the history and culture of India. None of them had anything to do with racialist issues, white-supremacy, the KKK or Freemasonry. Adherents of what has been termed the "Sixth Era" of the Klan in the late twentieth century believed that his 1874 Irano-Aryan Faith and Doctrine as Contained in the Zend-Avesta (first published in 1924) was a cypher in support of white supremacy. Although Pike makes at least one reference to his personal belief that the "white race" is of a "higher and nobler" nature, the book as a whole is not directed to arguing or proving that belief.

See Ray Baker Harris’s Bibliography of the Writings of Albert Pike. [Supreme Council S.R., S.J., Washington D.C.: 1957]. Cf. kukluxklan.org [2005/08/22] where Knights of the Ku Klux Klan national director, Thomas Robb, claims that Pike helped Simmons reorganize the Klan in 1915.
  
"I took my obligations from white men, not from negroes. When I have to accept negroes as brothers or leave masonry, I shall leave it" Albert Pike 33rd* source: Delmar D. Darrah, History and Evolution of Freemasonry 1954, page 329. The Charles T Power Co.   The full quote:

The status of Negro Masonry in this country was perhaps never better defined than it was by Albert Pike in 1875, when he said, "Prince Hall Lodge was as regular a Lodge as any Lodge created by competent authority. It had a perfect right to establish other Lodges and make itself a Mother Lodge. I am not inclined to meddle in the matter. I took my obligations from white men, not from negroes. When I have to accept negroes as brothers or leave masonry, I shall leave it. Better let the thing drift."

Note that the Supreme Grand Commander of the United Supreme Council (Sept. 14, 1887 - d. Oct. 18, 1904), Southern Jurisdiction, Prince Hall Affiliation, Thornton A. Jackson, was a personal friend of Albert Pike’s. Pike presented Jackson with a complete set of his rituals for use by the Prince Hall Scottish Rite.

  
Pro Slavery Cherokee Indians in the Oklahoma Territory who were members of the Masonic Knights of the Golden Circle.   A vehicle for American expansionism, the Knights of the Golden Circle was not masonic.

Soon after the collapse of the Know-Nothings in 1856 from sectional strife, one of its Virginia members, George W. L. Bickley, formed the Knights of the Golden Circle. The interesting name came from Bickley’s fantastic scheme for a South American fillibustering expedition. A great circle could be circumscribed on the globe, with Cuba as its centre and with a radius of sixteen geographical degrees, that could encompass Mexico, Central America, the northern portion of South America, and the West Indies. Bickley proposed to lead private armies across the Rio Grande, conquer and annex these lands, and parcel them out as new slave states, preserving the balance of power with the North.

The Choktaw and Indian Nations, some of whom were slaveholders, and whose members belonged to the Knights of the Golden Circle, were friendly to the Southern cause from the beginning, but it was different with the Cherokees. The latter had placed themselves under the protection of the United States, and had bound themselves to make no treaty with a foreign power, which they then considered the Confederacy to be. Leaders of the Treaty party and the Old Settlers among them sided with the pro-slavery people and joined the Knights of the Golden Circle, but the loyally inclined members of the tribe, who were in the majority, combined into a society called the Kituwha, an ancient order, which opposed the slavery adherents.

  
...it seems pretty clear to most researchers who was higher up the secret society occult ladder and therefore more instrumental in the founding of the Klan....   No references cited, reasons given for the claim, or justification of the term "occult ladder".
  
Do you say that Professor Fleming, Miss Davis, Mr. Bowers, and all the other pro-Confederate historians were liars when they wrote of Pike’s marvelous deeds as KKK founder and leader?   Liars? No. Discredited promoters of a partisan and strongly opinionated interpretation of the history of American Reconstruction? Yes:

"But before the revival, a crucial role was played by the scholarly historians of Reconstruction. Heavily influenced by the 1872 joint committee minority report, these historians, from 1893 to 1907, systematically distorted the motives of radical Republicans, falsified the behavior of Southern blacks, and glorified the Ku-Klux Klansmen as heroes. Their influence on subsequent histories, both academic and popular, was enormous. The most important of their works were Woodrow Wilson’s A History of the American People, John Ford Rhodes’s History of the United States (volume 6), Hohn S. Reynolds’s Reconstruction in South Carolina, William A. Dunning’s Reconstruction, Political and Economic, and the numerous Reconstruction monographs by Columbia University historian Walter Lynwood Fleming."

Fleming’s only source appears to be John C. Lester and James R. Crowe. Susan L. Davis' only source appears to be John C. Lester and James R. Crowe. Claude G. Bowers' only source appears to be Fleming and Davis.

None of them describe any "marvelous deeds" but only refer to Pike’s reported leadership. None of them provide any real citation or references. The alleged claims of other historians who refer to Pike are not referenced so cannot be addressed.
  
...the Secret Masonic Lodge of B'nai B'rith puts the muscle on....   The B'Nai B'rith (Sons of the Covenant) was founded in New York in 1843. This service organization has no affiliation with Freemasonry. Lady Queenborough’s claim that Pike signed a treaty with the B'Nai B'rith in Hamburg is unfounded: The SRSJ never claimed jurisdiction outside North America. [Occult Theocrasy, p. 288.]

  
They want to have it both ways: first to issue propaganda justifying Klan terrorism as the work of "respectable'' men like Pike; later, when their hero is under attack, to claim that their own propaganda slanders their man!   No reference or citation is given for any alleged statement by freemasons that Klan terrorism was justified. All references cited are by authors sympathetic to the Klan or white supremacy; none are by freemasons, or those authorized as representing regular Freemasonry.

Opponents of the Klan

As a counterpoint to the masonic affiliation of some Klan leaders, it should be noted that major opponents to the Klan were also freemasons:

General Butler

Benjamin Franklin Butler (1818-1893)

General (later Congressman) Benjamin Franklin Butler of Massachusetts drafted and lobbied for the first Ku Klux Act which passed on April 20, 1871. A bill to execute the Ku Klux Act passed the Senate but defeated by the House. A second bill drafted by Rep. Samuel Shellabarger of Ohio Senate on May 21, 1872, but failed in the House on June 6, 1872. The act of February 28, 1871 was amended in the Sundry Civil Bill passed June 10, 1872 with a "rider" introduced by Kellog of Louisiana. Along with Republican Senator Charles Sumner, he proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, a seminal and far-reaching law banning racial discrimination in public accommodations. The law was declared unconstitutional.

 Butler was a member of Pentucket Lodge in Lowell, Massachussetts and was made an honourary 33° member of the Scottish Rite, Northern Jurisdiction on March 16, 1864.
John Scott (1824-1896)

This U.S. Republican Senator from Pennsylvania from 1869 to 1875 (b. July 24, 1824 - d. Nov. 29, 1896) headed the 1871 "Scott" Senate Committee investigating reports of the Ku Klux Klan, and the Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionery States(Washington, 1872). The majority report filed by Scott on February 19, 1872 comprised twelve large, closely printed volumes clearly condemning the actions of the Klan, and directly lead to the passage of the Ku Klux Act.

 Scott was a member of Lewistown Lodge No. 203, in Lewistown Pa.

James E. Boyd

This Confederate soldier renounced the Klan and provided much testimony to the Scott Committee. He was later a Governor of Nebraska and a member of Capitol Lodge No. 3 in Omaha, Nebraska.

George H. Williams

(b. March 23, 1823 - d. April 4, 1910) This Oregon Senator, prosecuted Klansmen while Federal Attorney General. He was later Mayor of Portland. Denslow identifies him as a freemason, but supplies no record of membership in Oregon; probably Iowa.

Anti-Klan remarks

Although irrelevent to any accusations leveled at Albert Pike, it can also be noted that at least two other well-known freemasons condemned the revived Klan.

Alfred Fuller

Founder of the Fuller Brush Company and a freemason, Fuller denounced Klansmen as "fools and radicals" [The Fiery Cross p. 193]

Henry Ford

"Klan editors had assembled ninety-six of Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic essays from The Dearborn Independent and bound them in a volume they entitled The International Jew The book subsequently was reprinted in Germany by the Nazi World Service. On January 12, 1942, an embarrassed Henry Ford wrote [Imperial Wizard James A.] Colescott saying that he did 'not subscribe or support, directly or indirectly, any agitation which would promote antagonism against my Jewish fellow citizens.' Ford threatened the Klan with legal action unless it ceased publication and circulation of his misbegotten essays." [The Fiery Cross p. 273] U.S. Congress, House Congressional Record, 77 Cong., 2 Sess. (1942): A1084.
________________________________________
1. Wyne Craig Wade. The Fiery Cross, The Ku Klux Klan in America. Simon and Schuster, Inc. New York: 1987. [p 405.] ISBN: 0-671-41476-3 ^

2. Kenneth M. Stampp and Leon F. Litwack, ed.. Reconstruction., An Anthology of Revisionist Writings. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge: 1969. [p. viii] SBN 8071-0312-8. [531 pages]. ^

3. Wyne Craig Wade. loc cit [p. 390, 391.] ^

4. Lynn Dumenil (b. 1950), Freemasonry and American Culture, 1880-1930. Princeton, New Jersey: c.1984. [p. 123. see also p. 259 for list of published denouncements.] xviii, 305 p., [4] p. of plates ; ill. ; 23 cm. For Masonic disapproval of the Klan, see Tyler-Keystone 38 (May 1923): 93; Calif. Proc., 1925, correspondence, pp. 30-311 39; Texas Freemason 32 (January 1926): p. 3; Masonic Review 2 (October 1921) p. 53; Donavan Duncan Tidwell, "The Ku Klux Klan and Texas Masonry," Transactions, Texas Lodge of Research 14 (1978/1979): pp. 160-176; Tex., Proc., 1925, p. 21; Texas Freemason 32 (January 1926): 34; Tex. Proc., 1921, pp. 39-48; Calif. Proc., 1925, pp. 399-402. For Masonry's connection with the Ku Klux Klan, see Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku Klux Klan and the City, 1915-1930 (New York, 1967), pp. 29, 95, 134, 143, 161, 162, 191, 203, 204, 290, 219, 259, 277-278. Cited by Dumenil. ^

5. Wyne Craig Wade. loc cit [p. 141.] Simmons photo, uncredited, from Norman MacKenzie, Secret Societies. London : Crescent Books, Inc., 1967. p. 278.^

6. Wyne Craig Wade. loc cit [p. 155.] ^

7. Luther A. Smith, The New Age "The Grand Commander’s Message. New Age magazine, February 1960. Luther A. Smith, The New Age "The Grand Commander’s Message, The New Age and the Election." The Supreme Council, Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, Washington, D.C.: November 1960. [p. 4.] ^

8. William Harvey Fisher. The Invisible Empire, A Bibliography of the Ku Klux Klan The Scarecrow Press, Inc., Metuehen, N.J. & London: 1980 ISBN: 0-8108-1288-6 ^

9. Andrew Nelson Lytle. Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company, J.S. Saunders & Company, Nashville, Tennessee: 1996, copyright 1931 (statement supported by Captain Morton [p. 383.] ISBN: 1-879941-09-0. Also see White Terror,Allen W. Trelease. p. 14. ^

10. Fred W. Allsopp, Albert Pike, A biography "Letters to the People of the Northern States." Parke-Harper Company, Little Rock, Ark.: 1928. [p. 184.] ^

11. Fred W. Allsopp, loc cit. [page 181.] ^

12. Claude G. Bowers. The Tragic Era, The Revolution after Lincoln. Houghton Mifflin Company. The Riverside Press. Cambridge Massachusetts 1929. 540 pages.[p. 310] ^

13. Wyne Craig Wade. loc cit [p. 58.] ^

14. Delmar Duane Darrah, History and Evolution of Freemasonry The Charles T. Powner Co. , Illinois: 1951. [p. 319.] ^

15. "On the Origins of the Prince Hall Scottish Rite rituals." Art deHoyos. HeredomTransactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society. Vol. 5, 1996. S. Brent Morris, ed.. [pp. 51-67.] ^

16. Wyne Craig Wade. loc cit [p. 39.] ISBN: 0-671-41476-3 ^

17. Fred W. Allsopp, loc cit [pp. 221, 231.] ^

18. Wyne Craig Wade. loc cit [p. 115.] ^

19. Emails sent (2002/03/18) to this website by a self-claimed third generation Klansman report that both Pike and this book are highly revered by the Klan. Using the first two initiatory rituals of Freemasonry for their own, they believe that they were written by Pike. If they are, in fact, using masonic rituals, Pike did not write them. They would probably have copied Ralph P. Lester’s 1904 Look to the East!, Thomas Smith Webb’s 1816 The Freemason’s Monitor or William Preston’s 1775 Illustrations of Masonry. They may be using the ritual Pike wrote for his fourth and fifth degrees of the Scottish Rite.

 William Joseph Whalen, in his 1987 Christianity and American Freemasonry mistakenly reports that Nathan Bedford Forrest founded the Klan; repeats without providing citation the claim that Pike was the Klan’s Chief Justice; excerpts the Negro Freemasonry quote without providing context; and notes that "Some believe Pike concocted the ritual for the original KKK." (p. 17-18).

 That Albert Pike is revered by today’s Klan does not demonstrate or prove that he had any association or sympathy with the original Klan.^

20. White Terror, The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction, Allen W. Trelease. London: Secker & Warburg, 1972. 556pp. ^

21. White Terror, : "Three years later, in testifying before the Congressional investigating committee, Gordon was as evasive as Forrest. He admitted that he had joined early in 1868 a secret organization that was formed throughout the state [Georgia] and probably beyond it for the purposes of protecting society against Negro depredation and the supposed dangers of the Union League." [p. 74.] "Its members, the general declared, were in reality the Negroes' best friends, the kindest of their former masters, those most apt to give them money in times of hardship." [p. 74.] "The most charitable interpretation of his denial that he served as state chief of the Klan is that he acted in that capacity during the initial organizational stage without being formally inducted." [p. 75.] ^

   This webpage and related links have been awarded the Albert Pike Award for Masonic Websites by the Grand Lodge of Arkansas.

 © 1871-2013 Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A.M. Updated: 2012/11/26
freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/kkk.html

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Godless Constitution Constitutional Law without Gods or Religion

God, the Constitution, and the Christian Right:
The Christian Right regularly claims that America is a “Christian Nation” and was founded on Christian principles. If this is the case, then those principles should be identifiable in America’s founding legal document, the Constitution. If the Constitution explicitly reflects Christian principles and doctrines, then the Christian Right is correct that America was founded on Christianity; otherwise, their claims are wishful thinking at best. So where are God and religion in the Constitution?

 

No Religious Tests:
Article VI says: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." In practice this prohibition was often violated, and even today there are unenforceable prohibitions in state constitutions against atheists holding public office. If America is a Christian Nation, why weren't public offices limited to Christians, or even particular types of Christians? Why weren't public offices limited solely to monotheists or to theists?

 

Sundays Excepted Clause:
Some take hope from Article 1, Section 7, Clause 2 which gives the president an extra day to deal with a bill from Congress if the 10th day falls on Sunday — known as the "Sundays Excepted Clause." Is this an establishment of the Christian sabbath and thus of Christianity? No, it was a recognition of the fact that many Christians wouldn't work on this day and that an extra day may be needed. It must be noted that at this time, the government continued to deliver mail on Sundays.

 

In the Year of Our Lord?:
At the end of the Constitution, the date is prefaced with "in the year of our Lord." Is this an expression of the fundamental role played by Jesus and Christianity in the Constitution? No, this was just the standard dating convention. It's no more significant than using BC and AD when writing dates now. At most, it's an example of the cultural importance of Christianity at the time; it's not a sign of the political or philosophical importance of Christianity to the Constitution. Read More...

Oaths and Affirmations:
The Constitution requires elected official take oaths or affirmations before serving; was this understood as an example of the importance of swearing an oath to God? No — if it was meant to get people to swear an oath to God because only theists could be trusted, the Constitution would have said so (and would not have banned religious tests for public office). Oaths can be taken on more than the Bible and God; the choice of using an affirmation signals that religious oaths were not privileged.

First Amendment: Free Exercise:
The first amendment to the Constitution protects the free exercise of religion. It does not protect just the free exercise of Christianity nor does it suggest that Christianity and Christians should be have special protections and privileges. The authors used the term "religion," meaning that all religions have exactly the same status before the law and the government. If they had thought that Christianity were special, they'd have said so; instead, they treated it like every other religion.

First Amendment: No Establishment:
The first amendment to the Constitution also prohibits the government from "establishing" any religion. The meaning of "establishment" is hotly debated and some insist that it merely means that the government can't create a national religion. This reading is too narrow and would make the clause all but meaningless. To have relevance, it must mean that the government can't favor, endorse, promote, or support any religions just as it can't hinder any: it must remain as neutral as possible.

We the People:
The Ameican Constitution begins with the phrase "We the People," and its significance cannot be overlooked. This establishes that sovereign power rests with the people and that all government power and authority derives from the consent of the people. It's a repudiation of older Eurpean ideas that governments are established by God and derive their power or authority from God (for example, the divine right of kings). It's also thus a repudiation of the Christian Right's arguments today.

The American Constitution is Godless, Religionless:
No matter how hard conservative apologists for the Christian Right try, they cannot locate endorsements of religion, God, theism, or Christianity in the Constitution. At no point does the Constitution exhibit anything less than a fully secular, godless character. The American Constitution was a novel experiment in the creation of a secular government on the basis of popular sovereignty and democratic principles. All of this would be undermined by the Christian Right.

God, Deism, and the Authors of a Secular Constitution:
The authors of the American Constitution were not atheists, though some might be regarded as little more than atheists by self-righteous religious moralizers today. Many of the authors were deists. Among those who were Christian, few seem to have held same sort of religious beliefs common with conservative evangelicals in America today. The Christian Right would claim them as religious brethren, but the two groups are far too dissimilar for that.

 

Why does the Christian Right seek to make a big deal out of the religious beliefs of the authors of the Constitution, though? They seem to think that if these men can be identified as devout Christians, then it follows that the Constitution is a Christian document which embodies Christian principles and doctrines (as defined by the Christian Right, of course). This does not follow, however. A Christian is every bit as capable of creating a godless, secular document as an atheist is.

 

Indeed, the fact that many of these men were devout Christians (even if not in the way that the Christian Right imagines) bolsters the case of contemporary secularists because it makes the absence of overt religious and Christian language all the more glaring. If they had mostly been atheists, the non-religious language would be expected and unremarkable. Yet because they were religious and steeped in Christian education, the absence of Christian language and references must be read as both deliberate and purposeful.

 

What might that purpose have been? To establish a secular government, untainted by the many problems which sectarian divisions, religious violence, and Christian bigotry had inflicted on European nations. For the most part the authors of the Constitution succeeded. Why does the Christian Right work so hard to undermine and undo what America's founders accomplished?

 

http://atheism.about.com/od/godlessliberals/p/Constitution.htm

 

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The Founding Fathers Were NOT Christians or Secular Humanists: a Refutation of Steven Morris

by Lewis Loflin

Steven Morris complains that the Religious Right is rewriting American history to bolster a political agenda. Very true, but secular fundamentalists such as himself are doing the same thing. For secular fundies such as Morris, their low point came in 2004 with the re-election of George Bush.

In fascinating article from The Nation entitled In God's Country (11/6/2006) secular fundamentalists lamented,

...the nine in ten Americans who have said they've never doubted the existence of God. Or the eight in ten who believe the Lord works miracles. Or the same number who are certain they will be called to answer for their sins on Judgment Day. Or the tens of millions who attend church every week--more, in a typical seven-day span, than those who turn out for all sporting events combined...the idea that urbanization, scientific progress and rising living standards would gradually transform America into a secular society has long appealed to journalists and intellectuals. Talk about blind faith...

Secular arrogance in believing that anyone who believes in God is somehow a backward, country bumpkin is a big part of their elitist mentality. As the article continues,

...most of the Founders were Deists and Unitarians who rejected doctrines like the Incarnation. Thomas Jefferson dismissed the Trinity as "incomprehensible jargon." He and other Founders made no mention of God in the Constitution, and took pains not to establish an official church on US soil. And yet, as various scholars have noted, disestablishment grew out of respect, not disdain, for religion, which, James Madison observed, "flourishes in greater purity without [rather] than with the aid of government." He was right...falling church membership stirred much excited talk about the so-called "death of God." Somebody forgot to inform the American people, an overwhelming majority of whom told pollsters they were believers...

The article destroys many other secular myths as well including:

A large number of evangelical Christians don't live in the Bible Belt.

Many of them aren't white. Many black and Latino voters aren't flocking to the GOP and vote Democrat. In fact, Protestants and Mormons are converting scores of Latinos and with the Catholic Church, are the largest supporters of illegal alien amnesty. Bush is in "lock-step" with the left on this.


• A majority of evangelicals actually hold an unfavorable view of people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Most care more about jobs than gay marriage or abortion.


• The number of conservative Protestants who oppose abortion under all circumstances is a whopping 14 percent, less than the 22 percent who are consistently pro-choice.


• In 2004 election exit polls showed 22 percent of voters ranked "moral values" as their top priority. A comparable percentage of voters had listed values as their foremost concern in 1996 when Bill Clinton was re-elected.


• 82 percent of all Americans opposed Congress and the President's meddling in the Terri Schiavo case in 2004. Most Christians including Evangelicals support stem cell research.


• In 2004 the National Association of Evangelicals issued a statement affirming that the government "has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation." Others declared, "Our commitment to Jesus Christ compels us to solve the global warming crisis." Christians can also be "tree huggers."


• That both the civil rights and anti-slavery movements were Christian, not secular.

Leftist/liberal NPR reported on November 8, 2006 that many Evangelicals voted Democrat. Yet, the Republican Party is supposed to be in control of Jews and so-called "neo-cons," yet a CNN exit poll for November 7 showed the Jewish vote went 87% for Democrats.

And so on. This one statement is very profound with the secular left,

Some on the far left...(while)...happily disparaging Bible Belt Christians while giving a pass to Islamist forces in Palestine, Iraq and southern Lebanon. When it comes to the latter, care is taken to understand what draws people to Islam--the failure of secular ideologies...Might not some of the same factors be at play among born-again Christians in places like rural Alabama?

Treaty of Tripoly

"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 laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahomitan 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."

In June 1797, the Senate unanimously ratified this treaty, which President John Adams immediately signed into law. While this was brought up by Daniel Pipes to illustrate we are not at war with Islam, but Islamo-fascism, Morris uses this as "proof" we are not a "Christian nation." Pipes does name Morris for his article (see below), but Morris doesn't get it. It proved they had no hostility towards religion, not that they wanted faith excluded from the public. It is correct that God isn't mentioned in the Constitution, but I see no promotion of any particular religious system, including Secular Humanism.

It is very true that Freemasonry played a big part in the American Revolution, but Morris fails to note that one main requirement was a belief in God. He would never have been allowed to join.

In response to a reader request I looked into Deism and Freemasonry. Like all things influenced by the European Enlightenment they share many common values. America's most famous Freemason is also a Deist, George Washington. Not only did he allow Universalists to serve in his army, he had Jewish and Deists officers as well along with Enlightened Christians. In the Freemason lodges Protestants, Jews, Deists, Unitarians, and all who believed in God, liberty, etc. put aside their theological differences and joined together. Because of the influence of the European Enlightenment and their Jewish/Christian traditions, these groups had many things in common. Half the signers of the Constitution were Freemasons as was Francis Scott Key who wrote our National Anthem and Frances Bellamy who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. Not all Deists are Freemasons with Thomas Jefferson as one example. The claim that Freemasons are all Jews is also false.

The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians

by Steven Morris, in Free Inquiry, Fall, 1995

"The Christian right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of its campaign to force its religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity.

This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New testaments.

Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer whose manifestos encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and aided materially in winning the war of Independence:
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
From:
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, pp. 8,9 (Republished 1984, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY)

The only problem with the above statement as given is out of context. The Age of Reason was written to refute secular violence and terrorism of the French Revolution. But what did Paine really say? Here are some examples;

"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life."

"The moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the creation toward all his creatures. That seeing, as we daily do, the goodness of God to all men, it is an example calling upon all men to practice the same toward each other."

"I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I content myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that the power that gave me existence is able to continue it in any form and manner he pleases, either with or without this body" (Age of Reason).

"I consider myself in the hands of my Creator, and that he will dispose of me after this life consistently with his justice and goodness" (Private Thoughts on a Future State)

"We believe in the existence of a God, and in the immortality of the soul."

"Were man impressed as fully and as strongly as he ought to be with the belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by the force of that belief; he would stand in awe of God and of himself, and would not do the thing that could not be concealed from either. ... This is Deism."

George Washington, the first president of the United States, never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. Washington Championed the cause of freedom from religious intolerance and compulsion. When John Murray (a universalist who denied the existence of hell) was invited to become an army chaplain, the other chaplains petitioned Washington for his dismissal. Instead, Washington gave him the appointment. On his deathbed, Washington uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance.
From:
George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127 (1963, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, TX)

While this is true, Washington's acceptance and tolerance of other beliefs is shown by his embracing Freemasonry. Unlike secular humanists, tolerance extended to all with Washington, not just tolerance of everything except Christianity. It should also be noted his wife and daughters were among the most pious of Christians.

John Adams, the country's second president, was drawn to the study of law but faced pressure from his father to become a clergyman. He wrote that he found among the lawyers 'noble and gallant achievements" but among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces". Late in life he wrote: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"

It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."
From:
The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw, pp. 17 (1976, North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC) Quoting a letter by JA to Charles Cushing Oct 19, 1756, and John Adams, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by James Peabody, p. 403 (1973, Newsweek, New York NY) Quoting letter by JA to Jefferson April 19, 1817, and in reference to the treaty, Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 311 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June, 1814.

Note that John Adams was a Unitarian and I have already addressed the issue of the Treaty of Tripoly. But what Morris fails to note is Adam's views of Christian basher and anti-Semitic bigots like Voltaire, whom secular fundamentalists like Morris present often as representing all of Deism.

Adams wrote of Voltaire, "How is it possible [that he] should represent the Hebrews in such a contemptible light? They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern."

Alexis de Tocqueville observed, "The Americans combine notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to conceive the one without the other."

See John Adams embraces a Jewish homeland.

Thomas Jefferson, third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, said:"I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian." He referred to the Revelation of St. John as "the ravings of a maniac" and wrote:
The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained."
From:
Thomas Jefferson, an Intimate History by Fawn M. Brodie, p. 453 (1974, W.W) Norton and Co. Inc. New York, NY) Quoting a letter by TJ to Alexander Smyth Jan 17, 1825, and Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 246 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to John Adams, July 5, 1814.

Thomas Jefferson held most clergy and organized religion in low regard not so much for theology, but for abuse of power and attacks on liberty. Jefferson identified himself as a Unitarian, not a Deist as such. But I have demonstrated that Deism as understood in America was drawn from Christianity, often a rejection of Calvinism. But what did Jefferson say on Jesus?

Jefferson was always reluctant to reveal his religious beliefs to the public...He was raised as an Anglican, but was influenced by English deists. "Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." In Query XVII of in the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom: "The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg . . . . Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error."

His ideas are nowhere better expressed than in his compilations of extracts from the New Testament "The Philosophy of Jesus" (1804) and "The Life and Morals of Jesus" (1819-20?)...Jefferson believed in the existence of a Supreme Being who was the creator and sustainer of the universe and the ultimate ground of being, but this was not the triune deity of orthodox Christianity. He also rejected the idea of the divinity of Christ, but as he writes to William Short on October 31, 1819, he was convinced that the fragmentary teachings of Jesus constituted the "outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man." In correspondence, he sometimes expressed confidence that the whole country would be Unitarian, but he recognized the novelty of his own religious beliefs. On June 25, 1819, he wrote to Ezra Stiles, "I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know." Rebecca Bowman, Monticello Research Department, August 1997. Ref. http://www.monticello.org/reports/interests/religion.html

More notes on Jefferson below.

James Madison, fourth president and father of the Constitution, was not religious in any conventional sense. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
From:
The Madisons by Virginia Moore, P. 43 (1979, McGraw-Hill Co. New York, NY) quoting a letter by JM to William Bradford April 1, 1774, and James Madison, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Joseph Gardner, p. 93, (1974, Newsweek, New York, NY) Quoting Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments by JM, June 1785.

Like his friend Jefferson he had a negative view of clerical abuse. He was likely influenced by English Deism like his friend Thomas Jefferson, which posits,

1. belief in the existence of a single supreme God
2. humanity's duty to revere God
3. linkage of worship with practical morality
4. God will forgive us if we repent and abandon our sins
5. good works will be rewarded (and punishment for evil) both in life and after death.

Ethan Allen, whose capture of Fort Ticonderoga while commanding the Green Mountain Boys helped inspire Congress and the country to pursue the War of Independence, said, "That Jesus Christ was not God is evidence from his own words." In the same book, Allen noted that he was generally "denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian." When Allen married Fanny Buchanan, he stopped his own wedding ceremony when the judge asked him if he promised "to live with Fanny Buchanan agreeable to the laws of God." Allen refused to answer until the judge agreed that the God referred to was the God of Nature, and the laws those "written in the great book of nature."
From:
Religion of the American Enlightenment by G. Adolph Koch, p. 40 (1968, Thomas Crowell Co., New York, NY.) quoting preface and p. 352 of Reason, the Only Oracle of Man and A Sense of History compiled by American Heritage Press Inc., p. 103 (1985, American Heritage Press, Inc., New York, NY.)

Allen never had anything to with the Constitution or held any public office. John Jay was his polar opposite did. Also according to Wikipedia, he just wasn't a big part of the American Revolution. Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Allen.

Benjamin Franklin, delegate to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, said:
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble." He died a month later, and historians consider him, like so many great Americans of his time, to be a Deist, not a Christian.
From:
Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Thomas Fleming, p. 404, (1972, Newsweek, New York, NY) quoting letter by BF to Exra Stiles March 9, 1970.

But as a secular humanist or atheist, Morris doesn't understand what Deism was as far as the Nation's Founders are concerned. There are a couple of versions of a religious creed that appears both in Ben's autobiography and, later in his life, in a letter to Ezra Stiles. Below are the words from his autobiography:

[I believe] That there is one God, who made all things. That he governs the world by his providence. That he ought to be worshiped by adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving. But that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man. That the soul is immortal. And that God will certainly reward virtue and punish vice, either here or hereafter.

This s more traditional Deism, hardly the belief "God made the universe and went away" nonsense from secular fundamentalists like Morris. On June 28, 1787, Franklin made a formal motion for prayers at the Constitutional Convention. The text of the motion itself reads:

I therefore beg leave to move, That henceforth Prayers, imploring the Assistance of Heaven and its Blessing on our Deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to Business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that Service.

This text is from Albert Henry Smyth's 1906 edition of The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Collected and Edited with a Life and Introduction, vol. IX, page 601. Franklin preceded the actual motion with a page and a half of explanation supporting the idea. After the motion, there is a footnote by the editor that reads: "Note by Franklin.--'The convention, except for three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary.'" None of this suggest hostility to Christianity or demands that all public displays of faith be banned.

---

The words "In God We Trust" were not consistently on all U.S. currency until 1956, during the McCarthy witch hunts.

In 1796, U.S. Vowed Friendliness With Islam

by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
November 7, 2006

Has the United States ever engaged in a crusade against Islam? No, never. And, what's more, one of the country's earliest diplomatic documents rejects this very idea.

Exactly 210 years ago this week, toward the end of George Washington's second presidential administration, a document was signed with the first of two Barbary Pirate states. Awkwardly titled the "Treaty of Peace and Friendship, signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796 (3 Ramada I, A. H. 1211), and at Algiers January 3, 1797 (4 Rajab, A. H. 1211)," it contains an extraordinary statement of peaceful intent toward Islam.

The agreement's 11^th article (out of twelve) 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 laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahomitan 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."

In June 1797, the Senate unanimously ratified this treaty, which President John Adams immediately signed into law, making it an authoritative expression of American policy.

In 2006, as voices increasingly present the "war on terror" as tantamount to a war on Islam or Muslims, it bears notice that several of the Founding Fathers publicly declared they had no enmity "against the laws, religion or tranquility" of Muslims. This antique treaty implicitly supports my argument that the United States is not fighting Islam the religion but radical Islam, a totalitarian ideology that did not even exist in 1796.

Beyond shaping relations with Muslims, the statement that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion" has for 210 years been used as a proof text by those who argue that, in the words of a 1995 article by Steven Morris, "The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians."

But a curious story lies behind the remarkable 11^th article. The official text of the signed treaty was in Arabic, not English; the English wording quoted above was provided by the famed diplomat who negotiated it, Joel Barlow (1754-1812), then the American consul-general in Algiers. The U.S. government has always treated his translation as its official text, reprinting it countless times.

There are just two problems with it.

First, as noted by David Hunter Miller (1875-1961), an expert on American treaties, "the Barlow translation is at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of the sense of the Arabic." Second, the great Dutch orientalist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936), reviewed the Arabic text in 1930, retranslated it, and found no 11^th article. "The eleventh article of the Barlow translation has no equivalent whatever in the Arabic," he wrote. Rather, the Arabic text at this spot reprints a grandiloquent letter from the pasha of Algiers to the pasha of Tripoli.

Snouck Hurgronje dismisses this letter as "nonsensical." It "gives notice of the treaty of peace concluded with the Americans and recommends its observation. Three fourths of the letter consists of an introduction, drawn up by a stupid secretary who just knew a certain number of bombastic words and expressions occurring in solemn documents, but entirely failed to catch their real meaning."

These many years later, how such a major discrepancy came to be is cloaked in obscurity and it "seemingly must remain so," Hunter Miller wrote in 1931. "Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point."

But the textual anomaly does have symbolic significance. For 210 long years, the American government has bound itself to a friendly attitude toward Islam, without Muslims having signed on to reciprocate, or without their even being aware of this promise. The seeming agreement by both parties not to let any "pretext arising from religious opinions" to interrupt harmonious relations, it turns out, is a purely unilateral American commitment.

And this one-sided legacy continues to the present. The Bush administration responded to acts of unprovoked Muslim aggression not with hostility toward Islam but with offers of financial aid and attempts to build democracy in the Muslim world.

From www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4099

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Additional notes on Jefferson

Note that Thomas Jefferson, one of the nation's most popular and respected presidents, is claimed by many groups.

Jefferson was born into an Anglican family and was raised as an Aglican. He would later be considered an Episcopalian, after the Episcopal Church was officially founded as a separate province within Anglicanism in 1789 (after the Revolution and independence from England).

Later in his adult life Jefferson did not consider himself an Episcopalian, or a member of any other specific denomination. Later in life Jefferson held many clearly Christian, Deist, and Unitarian beliefs, but was not a member of any congregation or denomination. Today, many Unitarians sincerely believe that Jefferson should be "counted as" a Unitarian, just as many Christians point to Jefferson as a Christian, and many of the small number of Americans who identify themselves as Deists believe Jefferson should be classified a Deist.

Jefferson was never a member of the Unitarian denomination nor was he ever active in a Unitarian congregation. However, he did once write that he would have liked to be a member of a Unitarian church, but he was not because there were no Unitarian churches in Virginia. It is not unreasonable to identify Jefferson as a Unitarian (with the caveat that, technically speaking, he was not actually one). However, it is a mistake to extrapolate from Jefferson's stated admiration for Unitarianism the notion that he was somehow "un-Christian" or "non-Christian." It is true that contemporary Unitarian-Universalists now classify their denomination as a distinct religion not confined as a subset of Christianity (although a large proportion of individual Unitarian-Universalists do indeed identify themselves as Christians). However, in Jefferson's day, Unitarianism was considerably different from its present form, and there was no concept that it was a non-Christian religion. Unitarianism in Jefferson's time was regarded as one liberal Protestant denomination among many other Protestant denominations extant in America. Virtually nobody thought of Jefferson as a non-Christian (or even non-Protestant) president.

By some of the more narrowly-conceived definitions of the word "Christian" which are in use today, particularly among Evangelicals since the 1940s, it is entirely possible that Jefferson's beliefs would mark him as a "non-Christian." Defining Jefferson as a non-Christian must be done purely on contemporary theological grounds, because he was clearly a Christian with regards to his ethics, conduct, upbringing, and culture. Furthermore, to define Jefferson as a "non-Christian" requires using definitions retroactively to classify Jefferson counter to his own self-concept and the commonly understood meanings of words during his own time.

Adherents of other religious groups, including atheists and agnostics, also point to various writings of Jefferson which are in harmony with their positions. The difficulty in classifying Jefferson using a single word for religious affiliation does not stem from a lack of information, but rather a wealth of writing -- which can be interpreted differently depending on a person's perspective. Jefferson left a considerable amount of writing on political and philosophical issues, as well as writing about religion, including the "Jefferson Bible."

In a practical sense, classifying Jefferson as a "Deist" with regards to religious affiliation is misleading and meaningless. Jefferson was never affiliated with any organized Deist movement. This is a word that describes a theological position more than an actual religious affiliation, and as such it is of limited use from a sociological perspective. If one defines the term "Deist" broadly enough, then the writing of nearly every U.S. president or prominent historical figure could be used to classify them as a "Deist," so classifying people as such without at least some evidence of nominal self-identification is not very useful.

Although Jefferson's specific denominational and congregational ties were limited in his adulthood and his ever-evolving theological beliefs were distinctively his own, he was without a doubt a Protestant. One should keep in mind that despite his later self-stated non-affiliation with any specific denomination, he was raised as an Episcopalian, attended Episcopalian services many times as an adult and as President, and he expressed a clear affinity for Unitarianism. However these denominations may be classified now, during Jefferson's lifetime, the Episcopal Church and the Unitarian Church were both considered to be Protestant denominations. Ref. http://www.adherents.com/people/pj/Thomas_Jefferson.html

 

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