McCain says US Constitution establishes "Christian Nation"

Great Debates
81

[QUOTE=Vinyl Turnip]
No, but your argument does seem to employ a meandering drift among the various definitions of the word “nation,” as though to establish some sort of equivalence between them. The assertion that the United States is a “Christian nation,” as I think you know full well, implies definition #1 here, and that the population of the United States also includes some Indian tribes (definition #3) and ethnic groups (definition #4) is irrelevant.

So now that we all know that by “nation” we’re saying “a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own,” if you still wish to insist that we are a “Christian nation,” I’d be grateful if you could point me to where I, as an atheist, might find the separate (non-Christian) system under which I am governed, and I suspect there’s more than a few Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, etc., who’d appreciate learning whom they might petition for a redress of grievances, all of us apparently now non-citizens of the United States of Jesusland.
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I don’t agree with that definition of Nation (the one I agree with is slightly different, being: Nations are culturally homogeneous groups of people, larger than a single tribe or community, which share a common language, institutions, religion, and historical experience), I do not think they necessarily have to strive to seek or possess a government of their own.

In any case, take say, the Germans in 1400 AD. It was not only a Christian nation, but a Catholic nation. Does that mean that anyone who was a part of the German nation in 1400 AD who wasn’t a Catholic, wasn’t part of the German nation? Of course not. It’s not an all or nothing association and I never said that it was (this sort of contradicts the "homogeneous part of my above definition, but we have to recognize that when talking about different types of groupings of peoples there is no such thing as true homogeneity.)

Furthermore, citizenship is an issue with the United States government, not any nation. One is a citizen of a State, not a nation.

82

There was a German nation in 1400? I thought Germany was first created in 1871.

83

[QUOTE=Shodan]
Distinction without a difference. What non-textualists deny is that something has to actually appear in the text of the Constitution in order to be in the Constitution.
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Good point. You know, like “Air Force” or “unitary executive” or “Christian nation” – all those brilliant ideas that conservative ideologues seem to somehow find in their copies of the Constitution.

Oh? Did you get your whole family to help guide that brush? – it’s far too broad for you to be manipulating single-handed. And we wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself straining for hyperbole.

Do you remember Marshall’s words, “We must never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding”? The point to “living Constitution” construction is that the authors – the Founding Fathers, the First and Reconstruction Congresses, etc., put some very broad language into the Constitution – and they did it on purpose. Because it’s not a guarantee that you can say what you like behind closed doors between 4:00 and 6:00 PM on Sunday – it’s that the freedom of speech shall not be abridged – by any government body whatsoever. It’s that whatever society today considers cruel and unusual punishment is forbidden – not what might have been considered cruiel and unusual in 1789. It’s that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, except by Congress during time of rebellion or invasion – and that does not mean that some bureaucrats have picked a suitable color for today’s threat level, or our troops are over fighting in another country for suitable trumped-up reasons, or someone does not qualify for naturalization at the moment – the words are shall not be suspended. No “except by President Bush”, no “but that doesn’t mean illegal aliens,” no "but we can substitute such kangaroo ‘courts’ as we choose – it’s shall not be suspended.

We’re not that far apart – we’re saying that the provisions of the Constitution actually mean something in everyday life. That the school board cannot decide that the First Amendment doesn’t apply within the school buildings. That the police cannot decide that the Fourth Amendment is like the Eleventh Commandment – it’s OK so long as you don’t get caught. That “due process of law” actually means something concrete, and not just that you can do any damn thing you want to anyone you can get away with doing it to, so long as you file the proper forms with the proper officials to “make it legal.” Which is, lately, what procedural due process has been reduced to.

84

Modern historians largely credit Otto Von Bismarck with forging the iron bonds of a modern German nation. If “credit” is quite the word.

85

[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
I don’t agree with that definition of Nation (the one I agree with is slightly different, being: Nations are culturally homogeneous groups of people, larger than a single tribe or community, which share a common language, institutions, religion, and historical experience), I do not think they necessarily have to strive to seek or possess a government of their own.
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But this definition of “nation” (essentially “nation-state,” or just a large tribal group) is an anachronism in a modern world of overnight transcontinental travel, instant global communication, You-fucking-Tube, massive migration, ubiquitous expatriate communities, etc., and and I don’t think there was ever a time when it applied to the United States or the colonies anyway. Have we ever really been “culturally homogenous?” There have always been disparate groups with their own interests, some larger and more imposing than others, but that hardly equates to homogeneity.

You demonstrate this yourself by selecting, as your example,

[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
the Germans in 1400 AD. It was not only a Christian nation, but a Catholic nation. Does that mean that anyone who was a part of the German nation in 1400 AD who wasn’t a Catholic, wasn’t part of the German nation? Of course not.
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All this definition of “nation” really does is create a series of concentric circles. If there’s a German nation (Holy Roman Empire, Batman!) inside of which one finds a Christian nation, inside of which is a Catholic nation… when we open the last Russian doll do we find a German Pope?

By your definition, one could say truthfully that a “Christian nation” (i.e., a large group containing Christians) resides within the United States (along with a significant number of other non-Christian “nations”), but that does not mean the United States of America is itself a “Christian nation.” Stevie Wonder is not God; ergo, McCain is full of shit.

86

[QUOTE=Monty]
There was a German nation in 1400? I thought Germany was first created in 1871.
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A “nation” is equivalent to a people (the singular noun from the social sciences, not the colloquial plural of ‘person’). So in view of the fact that there were a congeries of peoples who spoke various German dialects and who regarded themselves as ‘Deutsch’ in distinction from ‘Bohmer’ or ‘Frankisch’ – yeah, there was definitely a German nation.

But beyond that, there was a political nation ruled over by vassals prime owing allegiance to the German King, who governed principally through them, and who was generally either the Holy Roman Emperor or his son. It was the disintegration of that structure under the stress of the religious wars and the concessions demanded of the Habsburgs by the electors in exchange for their votes, that led to the Balkanized Germany of Graustarkian Grand Duchies that a ten year old could ride a bicycle across in an afternoon, from which Bismarck and Wilhelm of Hohenzollern built the Second Reich (the H.R.E. having been the First Reich).

87

[QUOTE=elucidator]
Modern historians largely credit Otto Von Bismarck with forging the iron bonds of a modern German nation. If “credit” is quite the word.
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In case you missed it, Martin Hyde, for whatever reason, is applying a particular and idiosyncratic definition to the word “nation” that will pretty well preclude any discussion of the use of the word in any historical context.

I’m not even challenging his definition, merely pointing out that 99% of the potential respones to any of his posts involving that word are going to be met with “Irrelevant! That is not what it means (in the particular, narrowly defined manner in which it has been employed).”

88

No, I didn’t miss it, it wasn’t relevant to the minor joke I was making. Which, I admit, wasn’t all that great before you beat it to death.

89

Shodan, do you believe that the rights granted in the Constitution should apply to women who are American citizens in good standing?

I never miss a chance to keep the Firesign Theater dream alive:
The Powerhouse Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of the Blinding Light

90

What’s with all these tangents about whether or not the “American nation” (in some non-political cultural sense) is Christian. Yes, a majority of the American people profess some version of Christianity. So what?

Right there in the OP of the thread:

[QUOTE=Raza]
Note that he isn’t saying that “most Americans then and now are Christian, so we are a de-facto Christian nation”, he’s saying the Constitution actually establishes the US as a Christian nation, in a legal sense.
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So, we aren’t arguing about whether or not most Americans are Christians, which is really not a point anyone would argue about. Most Americans are Christians.

Here’s what McCain is reported to have said:

Which is bullshit right there. What Christian principles would those be? Where in the Bible does it proclaim that governments derive their powers “from the consent of the governed” and that the people have the right “to alter or abolish” any form of government they believe is destructive of their rights? Oh, wait, it doesn’t say that anywhere in the Bible; in fact, it says the exact opposite: that governments are instituted by God, not by any group of humans, and that everyone ought to submit themselves to “the powers that be” (as an older translation puts it). Where does the Bible call for “the free exercise of religion”? It doesn’t; it says that all who call for the worship of “false gods” must be put to death. Christianity was the established faith of the various states of Europe for over 1500 years, and presumably “Christian principles” reined supreme during that interval; there was precious little belief in “the free exercise of religion” as a right of individual conscience during that time.

Conversely, the American Revolution was not exactly fought on the ethical principles laid down by Jesus; we haven’t based our laws on the words of Jesus (cloak-stealers will be prosecuted in the United States), nor our foreign policy (after Pearl Harbor or 9/11, we damned well didn’t “turn the other cheek”).

McCain goes on to say

Well, so much for Joe Lieberman. Or Thomas Jefferson, for that matter. (Note particularly the footnote where Jefferson lists some of the things he didn’t believe in.) Of course, the Constitution of the United States of America says that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States”; that doesn’t mean John McCain can’t refuse, in the privacy of the voting booth, to vote for someone who is not of a particular sect, but if he publicly declares this, the rest of us can form our own opinions about his Americanism.

Finally, there’s this from McCain:

Which is more bullshit on his part. The Constitution does no such thing; on the one hand, the Constitution contains no exclusively or distinctly Christian principles, nor does it contain any rhetorical proclamation of being founded upon Christianity: No “We the People, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ”, no “in the Name of the Holy Trinity”, just the one reference to the common dating system of that (and this) era (and as already pointed out, the Constitution also contains references to the system of days and months which proclaim the divinity of the Moon, the Sun, Tyr, Wotan, Thor, Frigg, Saturn, Janus, Mars, Aphrodite, Maia, Juno, and Julius and Augustus Caesar). In fact, the writers of the Constitution set the government of the United States on a purely secular basis: they appeal to “the people” as the source of authority under the Constitution, not to God; the powers the Constitution speaks of are all concerning purely secular matters like patents and post offices and armies and coining money–nowhere is Congress granted any power to see to the “spiritual welfare” or “immortal souls” of the people; the Constitution specifically disallows religious tests for office; and it was quickly amended to guarantee the free exercise of religion and bar any establishment of religion.

91

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
One would seem to be that a slave is worth only three-fifths of a free white.
.
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Several answers, my point was that IMO there is no such thing. I hear the term Christian principles as in; this country was founded on, or Christian values, bandied about by people who probably give the terms much thought. It just means good and true and right or sumpin’

A pet peeve of mine. There are Christian doctrine and dogma of various types but I can’t think of any values and principles that are uniquely Christian or that haven’t existed long before Christianity did.

Not to hijack, I invite comments here

92

[QUOTE=Jonathan Chance]
Or, of course, from the source:

From Article 11 of the US Treaty with Tripoli
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And as you can see here, possibly written entirely by Joel Barlow: (bolding mine)

93

[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
I’d say that there is a distinction between having a Christian majority and being a Christian nation.
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Absolutely. I think the proper question is did we have a Christian founding. In addition to some of the points made, the country’s reason for being—the Declaration of Independence—definitley portrays the new country as a religious one, though not necessarily a Christian one. Then again, I do thi9nk that would have been what was understood to be the intent at the time. so “religous”, yes. "Christian:, maybe.

94

[QUOTE=Voyager]
True, but that treaty was ratified unanimously by Congress, and at least some of them were at the Convention, I would expect.

Question for all: does anyone know why that language was in the treaty? Was it to play down the conflict with an Islamic nation?
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The site I provide a post or two above explores how the words even got in there. They seem to be in the American translation only, not the Arabic or the Italian. My guess is that onceit was in there and it reached congress for ratification they figured “Well, we’re glad that’s over” and moved on. Not that it was.

95

The issue of the Arabic translation of Article 11 is a complete red herring. No one in Congress in 1797 would likely have had the foggiest notion of what the Arabic text of the treaty was; this is the entire text of the treaty that was ratified by the United States Senate. That’s the text that has been in every official diplomatic history of the U.S. ever since. Note that the treaty is not very long; this wasn’t something that was slipped into Section 473A(2)(iii) of Appendix XII. The whole thing’s maybe three pages long. This was no secret protocol here, nor was there any cause for confusion to anyone in the United States as to what the text of Article 11 was. Each Senator who voted to ratify–the treaty was ratified unanimously–could not possibly have had any excuse that he didn’t know what he was voting for. Furthermore, the treaty was reprinted in its entirety in American newspapers of the day, so if somehow the eyes of two dozen United States Senators just happened to glaze over when they got to Article 11, many other people would have been in a position to let them know what they had just voted to confirm.

The United States Senate unquestionably ratified, unanimously, a treaty which clearly contained the words:

It’s possible the Bey of Tripoli never saw any such language in the Arabic version; or perhaps Article 11 was deleted from the Arabic version much later. Since we’re not debating the separation of mosque and state in 18th Century Libya, it’s a largely irrelevant question. The importance of the treaty is as a historical document which gives some insight into the original intent of the generation which founded the United States under its present Constitution.

Of course the treaty has no legal significance; if the Constitution had established Christianity to have any special status in the U.S., no mere treaty could change that. But the Constitution didn’t do any such thing.

96

[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
The issue of the Arabic translation of Article 11 is a complete red herring. No one in Congress in 1797 would likely have had the foggiest notion of what the Arabic text of the treaty was; this is the entire text of the treaty that was ratified by the United States Senate. That’s the text that has been in every official diplomatic history of the U.S. ever since. Note that the treaty is not very long; this wasn’t something that was slipped into Section 473A(2)(iii) of Appendix XII. The whole thing’s maybe three pages long. This was no secret protocol here, nor was there any cause for confusion to anyone in the United States as to what the text of Article 11 was. Each Senator who voted to ratify–the treaty was ratified unanimously–could not possibly have had any excuse that he didn’t know what he was voting for. Furthermore, the treaty was reprinted in its entirety in American newspapers of the day, so if somehow the eyes of two dozen United States Senators just happened to glaze over when they got to Article 11, many other people would have been in a position to let them know what they had just voted to confirm.

The United States Senate unquestionably ratified, unanimously, a treaty which clearly contained the words:

It’s possible the Bey of Tripoli never saw any such language in the Arabic version; or perhaps Article 11 was deleted from the Arabic version much later. Since we’re not debating the separation of mosque and state in 18th Century Libya, it’s a largely irrelevant question. The importance of the treaty is as a historical document which gives some insight into the original intent of the generation which founded the United States under its present Constitution.

Of course the treaty has no legal significance; if the Constitution had established Christianity to have any special status in the U.S., no mere treaty could change that. But the Constitution didn’t do any such thing.
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I agree with almost all of what you say. While I do view the ratification process as being the most important point, it does seem that Adams may never had uttered or written those words. So, the argument that one of the most important founders “stated explicitly” that sentiment is not a given. Based on the differences between the Arabic, Italian, and Barlow documents, it is my guess that it somehow slipped in and during ratification everyone was simply happy to have the problem resolved. As the Avalon site states, the issue is likely to remain a mystery.

97

Again, no particular secret: John Adams didn’t write the treaty. Even in 1796 Presidents of the United States didn’t write their own treaties. Presidents have people to do that sort of thing. The man mainly responsible for negotiating the treaty with Tripoli was one Joel Barlow, a Deist in the mold of Jefferson (and like Jefferson, “accused” of being an atheist), and presumably Barlow wrote it, including Article 11.

However, the English-language version of the treaty was read aloud to the Senators, who went on to unanimously ratified the treaty, and John Adams signed it, proclaming

I guess that would have been the point for Adams to slip in a signing statement, using his plenary powers as unitary executive and commander-in-chief, to say that of course what Article 11 really means is that the government of the United States is founded on the Christian religion. But I guess Adams forgot, and the wily Deist Joel Barlow successfully put one over on the entire United States government, which somehow no one else at the time noticed.