U.S.-Barbary treaty later erased Christian nation reference

David Gurowsky's letter makes no mention of why the United States entered into a treaty with the Barbary states.

After the U.S. and France signed a treaty in 1783 in which the United States gained its independence, we were without a Navy capable of defending ourselves from the Barbary pirates. France's navy had performed this task prior to the signing of the treaty.

The Barbary pirates were from North African Muslim countries, including among others Tripoli (now Libya).

The Barbary pirates were capturing different nations' ships, ours included, and one of the offshoots of their captures were selling the women as sex slaves or ransoming them for their freedom. Christians were abused and demeaned by the Barbary pirates. Does this sound familiar when we hear about IS activities today?

This treaty that David Gurowsky refers to included an Article 11 which in part stated "the Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." There is some question as to whether or not this Article 11 was included in the documents signed by Tripoli.

It should also be noted that this treaty was renegotiated eight years later and Article 11 was dropped in its entirety.

Ronald M. Mann wrote, "Adherence to the spirit and intent of our Constitution was so important to our Founding Fathers that one of the first acts of the first Congress in 1789 was to pass the verbiage of the Oath of Affirmation of office in compliance with Article VI of our Constitution." When George Washington took the oath in April 29th, 1789 he added "So help me God."

Sadly, with the passing of time, The Oath or Affirmation of office has become perfunctory. It has lost its meaning to many of our elected leaders and others.

Daniel Wiggins

Ellenton

This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "U.S.-Barbary treaty later erased Christian nation reference ."