A number of the Founding Fathers explicitly mentioned Muslims — along with other believers outside the prevailing Protestant mainstream — as they outlined the parameters of religious freedom and equal protection.
Muslims, referred to in those years as “Mahometans” or alluded to as “Turks,” likely lived in this country; an estimated 20 percent of enslaved Africans were Muslim. But much of the citizenry at the time didn’t acknowledge that Muslims existed in America, according to several historians.
So unlike Jews and Catholics, Muslims were discussed in the hypothetical — and often with negative opinions, including those held by Thomas Jefferson — to show “how far tolerance and equal civil rights extends,” said Denise Spellberg, author of “Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders.”
“In the formation of the American ideal and principles of what we consider to be exceptional American values, Muslims were, at the beginning, the litmus test for whether the reach of American constitutional principles would include every believer, every kind, or not,” Spellberg said in an interview.
Read more at WaPo
The WaPo sets up a subscription block after about 5 clicks on it, so….
I am not allowed to read ”the rest.”
However…..
James Madison opined:
– 1790 House debate on naturalization
Sounds a lot like wanting those who would ASSIMILATE.
George Washington opined:
– letter to John Madison from George Washington.
There’s that word again.
Alexander Hamilton in 1802:
Same thought, different words.
Everybody here now has the same rights.
And I have as much a right to disagree with their views as they with mine.
But when a person (Muslim or not) goes on You /tube and pulls out two knives and threatens, say, /Donald Trump with either circumcision or emasculation I am glad the Secret Service gets involved.