To the best of my knowledge, George Washington never explicitly offered his opinion of the First Amendment. It was proposed by Congress and ratified by the states during his first term as president but, per the Constitution, without his formal participation. Washington wrote to James Madison privately on May 31, 1789, stating, “I see nothing objectionable in the proposed Amendments. Some of them in my opinion, are importantly necessary; others, though of themselves (in my conception) not very essential, are necessary to quiet the fears of some respectable characters and well meaning men.”
The Constitution’s abolition of religious tests for office emancipated American Jews and Catholics from legal disabilities at the federal level, and decades before Britain did the same (this was only seven years after the devastating anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in London).
In his immortal Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, Washington laid the cornerstone of the American attitude toward the plurality of American religions: “The Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” Washington told Jewish believers, as he told all others, that it would be enough for them to pay their taxes, support the U.S. against its adversaries, and obey the law.
The laws of the United States, Washington proclaimed, would not merely tolerate religious differences while imposing varying discriminations and penalties—the country would have only generally applicable laws that treated all citizens alike without regard for their religion.
With 235 years of hindsight, we can see that Washington was making a threefold wager: he bet that believers would, despite religious differences, obey the law and act loyally toward the United States. Washington also bet that should differences of religious opinion spill over into illegal conduct or violent conflict, the government, operating with the united force of its citizens, would restore peace and enforce the law. Finally, in keeping with Masonic and Enlightenment notions of a just and merciful God, he wagered (very differently from Pascal) that God would not punish Americans for failing to uphold true religion against its false, fraudulent, or heretical competitors.
What are the challenges posed to Washington’s triple wager today?
As we approach a quarter century since 9/11, Muslim supremacist organizations are more active and more powerful in America than ever before. According to the vigilant observers at the Middle East Forum, they have built effective and occasionally murderous alliances with non-Muslim leftist activists.
As we all know, since October 7, 2023, American campuses have been convulsed by demonstrations in favor of or opposing Israel’s war against Hamas, a Palestinian outgrowth of the worldwide Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement. The anti-Israel demonstrations have in many places violated criminal laws against trespass and vandalism, and civil rights laws that require schools to prevent hostile environments for Jewish and Israeli students. Until January 20, 2025, these demonstrations went largely unhindered—as Senator Chuck Schumer reportedly told Columbia University officials, only Republicans were concerned about anti-Semitism on campus.
Muslim and even Islamist Americans must, of course, obey the law, as must all other Americans, immigrants, and visitors. But laws must be enforced. For fear of charges of “Islamophobia,” local and campus authorities have too often responded weakly to Muslim supremacist violence and unlawful harassment. Religious diversity cannot thrive in America if all believers, including Muslims, are not held to generally applicable laws that promote peaceful coexistence and civil dialogue.
The rise of Islamism and of pro-Palestine advocacy in general pose, however, an additional challenge to the pre-October 7 American consensus. Most Americans still believe that the People of Israel are the chosen people of God and that, in keeping with his promise to Abraham, their ancestor, God blesses those who bless the Jews and curses those who curse them. It is on these beliefs, as Michael Oren and others have shown, that America’s orientation toward Israel fundamentally rests. Islamist Americans, as is their constitutional and natural right, challenge these biblically promulgated beliefs.
In that respect, Islamism, as well as religiously based pro-Israel sentiment, test the third element of Washington’s wager. Can America remain the most powerful and most prosperous kingdom raised up on the earth since the Creation of Man if its Middle East policy ceases to be in accordance with the biblically revealed word of God?
Muslim supremacism poses one challenge to the common fabric of American life, and a different challenge to the foreign policy sympathies of most Americans. Pro-Israel organizations that wish to wake Americans to the “threat” of Islamism tend to conflate those challenges, but policymakers and citizens need to keep the elements of Washington’s wager separate in thought, even if they cannot be so easily distinguished in practice. Only then can we appreciate the challenge of Islamism to American life, as well as the strains our response puts on our habits and institutions.
We must argue on the merits with our fellow citizens for our—or God’s—preferred policy toward the Middle East. And American Islamists must not only obey the law but, to quote Washington’s Farewell Address, take greater pride in “the name of American…more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.”