The Bear That Walks like a Conservative

Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, as President, signed federal legislation which in effect purchased —with large grants of federal land put in a controlling trust —the services of an evangelical order to settle in Western U.S. lands to aid and teach the Christian and other Indians in the area. No doubt those federal laws were, in part, early manifestations of the U.S. policy of “civilizing the Indians.” That policy was implemented, to a great degree, by federally controlled financing of Christian missionary schools of various denominations and sects until the use of sectarian schools was discontinued by an Act of Congress in 1897.

Did Washington, Adams, Jefferson, their Congresses, and their successors in the federal executive and legislative branches all betray the First Amendment until 1897? Certainly not. Since the Framers of the First Amendment saw the Establishment Clause as basically precluding federal religious partisanship, non-partisan use of religious schools to pursue the secular end of “civilizing the Indians” was constitutional. The use of these schools was apparently thought to be wise public policy until almost a century after the First Amendment was added to the Constitution. Can anyone seriously pretend that these schools did not advance their religious mission as they taught Indian children?

WA

About the Author

William A. Rusher

Featured Tags

Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, as President, signed federal legislation which in effect purchased —with large grants of federal land put in a controlling trust —the services of an evangelical order to settle in Western U.S. lands to aid and teach the Christian and other Indians in the area. No doubt those federal laws were, in part, early manifestations of the U.S. policy of “civilizing the Indians.” That policy was implemented, to a great degree, by federally controlled financing of Christian missionary schools of various denominations and sects until the use of sectarian schools was discontinued by an Act of Congress in 1897.

Did Washington, Adams, Jefferson, their Congresses, and their successors in the federal executive and legislative branches all betray the First Amendment until 1897? Certainly not. Since the Framers of the First Amendment saw the Establishment Clause as basically precluding federal religious partisanship, non-partisan use of religious schools to pursue the secular end of “civilizing the Indians” was constitutional. The use of these schools was apparently thought to be wise public policy until almost a century after the First Amendment was added to the Constitution. Can anyone seriously pretend that these schools did not advance their religious mission as they taught Indian children?