Two Historic Letters

In 1790, after receiving a letter from Newport’s Hebrew Congregation warden Moses Seixas, President George Washington affirmed his commitment to the free exercise of religious choice. Seixas presented his letter from the Hebrew Congregation of Newport to Washington on August 17, 1790, at the Colony House in Newport, thanking him for the opportunities available to the Jewish community in the new country while also subtly asking whether religious tolerance would continue under the new national government. Washington’s reply emphasized two fundamental principles of American democracy: the separation of church and state and the right to practice religion, or not to practice at all. His response reassured those who had fled religious tyranny that life in the new nation would be different, affirmed that religious toleration would give way to religious liberty, and held that government would not interfere with matters of belief, anticipating language later added in the First Amendment to the Constitution on December 15, 1791.

Newport, Rhode Island · United States