The measure of American pluralism has never been how well we tolerate those who already think like us.
The measure of American pluralism has never been how well we tolerate those who already think like us.
I n August 1790, George Washington spoke one of the most consequential sentences in American civic history. Addressing the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, R.I., he declared that the American republic “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”
Those words were not ceremonial. They were a moral covenant for a fragile nation, an assurance that the United States would be a home not of uniformity but of liberty, where faith neither granted privilege nor invited penalty. Washington’s letter, preserved at the Touro Synagogue, assured Jews who had long lived under suspicion that their full belonging depended not on creed but on conduct: It “requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.” In one stroke, Washington tied freedom to responsibility and equality to virtue.
This was no mere political calculation. Washington wrote these words when European nations still confined Jews to ghettos, when religious tests barred them from universities and professions. His vision was audacious: a republic where citizenship transcended tribal loyalties, where the law protected conscience rather than compelling it. That experiment changed the world.
Two centuries later, Washington’s covenant is faltering. Across the political spectrum, religious bigotry has returned under new banners of ideology and identity. On the left, progressives excuse antisemitism as “anti-Zionism,” deploying academic jargon to sanitize ancient hatreds. On the right, populists flirt with Christian nationalism and conspiratorial purity tests. Both sides forget that America was founded precisely to escape religious tyranny. Each side betrays Washington’s ideal. The measure of American pluralism has never been how well we tolerate those who think like us, but whether we can respect those who do not.
The recent rise of New York assemblyman and now Mayor-elect of New York City Zohran Mamdani illustrates the point. A self-styled democratic socialist, Mamdani has gained attention — and justified criticism — for his radical economic vision and his failure to clearly condemn Hamas’s atrocities. Yet some of his opponents have crossed another line by mocking his Muslim faith or implying that his religion disqualifies him from civic trust. That, too, is an assault on the republic that Washington helped build. It is entirely possible — and necessary — to reject Mamdani’s ideas without demeaning his faith. When we attack citizens for their religion rather than their reasoning, we embrace the very tyranny our founders fled.
Washington understood something that too many modern leaders forget: liberty depends on restraint. Religious freedom was never meant as a license for moral chaos. It was designed to bind conscience to conduct by teaching citizens the habits of coexistence. Washington’s insistence that Jews “demean themselves as good citizens” was not a warning to a minority; it was a lesson for everyone. Citizenship is a practice, not an identity. It demands daily choices: to argue without demonizing, to defend principle without dehumanizing opponents, to build bridges even as we guard boundaries.
That truth feels almost radical today. On college campuses, students chant revolutionary slogans while intimidating Jewish peers and shouting down dissenters. Administrators retreat into euphemism, issuing statements so carefully balanced that they say nothing at all. A survey of university faculty from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found that 94 percent of professors reported suffering negative consequences for their speech. Moral courage is in short supply. The same institutions that once modeled civic virtue now model cowardice. They forget that Washington’s promise was reciprocal: a free society owes every faith its security, but each citizen owes that society decency.
Speech that incites hatred may be legal, but it is not honorable. Civic courage requires condemning both the bigotry that targets Jews and the fanaticism that celebrates terror. If we allow either to flourish, the center cannot hold. The Anti-Defamation League reports that antisemitic incidents in the U.S. reached record highs in 2024. Such statistics are not abstract; they are a moral barometer of a culture losing its civic discipline. Each incident represents a neighbor turned stranger, a community fractured, and a covenant broken.
Remembering Washington means measuring ourselves against the moral bar he set. “To bigotry no sanction” is not a slogan; it is a civic test. It demands that political leaders, educators, and citizens distinguish conviction from hatred and protect pluralism not as a diversity slogan but as a duty of civilization.
The danger today is not too much religion; it is too little moral literacy. A generation raised on outrage has learned to confuse speech with safety, identity with virtue, and belonging with conformity. Washington’s letter reminds us that America’s experiment depends on something sturdier: shared respect under law, sustained by mutual responsibility.
If our politics cannot make space for principled disagreement without descending into sectarian rage, we risk betraying the founding promise that made this country exceptional. The United States was never meant to be a confessional state or a secular void, but a moral republic where conscience and citizenship walk together.
Washington gave to bigotry no sanction. It’s time his successors did the same. The question is not whether we can afford to honor this covenant; it is whether we can afford not to. Our answer will determine whether America remains humanity’s best hope for proving that diverse peoples can share a common future, or whether we join history’s many republics that forgot their founding wisdom.