Historic Humanist Series

June 10, 1997, marks the bicentennial anniversary of an important event in the concept of the separation of church and state. On June 10, 1797, President John Adams signed a treaty with Tripoli assuring its Muslim population it had no reason to anticipate religious problems in its relationships with the United States of America. Article 11 of that treaty, unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate, stated "...the government of the United States of America is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion."

This article emphatically reaffirmed what the framers of the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment clearly intended: the government of the U.S. is neither Christian nor anti-Christian, it is instead religiously neutral, so that every citizen can make religious decisions based on their own conscience.

--Flo Winewriter