Freedom of Religion

Freedom of religion was something the Founding Fathers understood, but which was lost on second generation populists like Andrew Jackson. Jackson was a teenager during the revolution and even saw some action in the revolutionary war, but he did not have a good classical education like most of the founders, and so he was weak in his understanding of first amendment rights. Many Americans today also lack a classical education, and like Jackson, they think the government should push religion or require religious leaders to follow the government's agenda.

Andrew Jackson during the Revolutionary War
Brave Enough to Stand Up to the British,but Not Sure What He  Was Fighting For
Credit: Wikipedia

During the Martial Law imposed by General Jackson prior to the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson violated many of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, including freedom of religion. According to the Journal of Jean Laffite, Jackson ordered an unwilling priest, Antonio de Sedella, to instruct his congregation to pray for an American victory. I retell this story in Theodosia and the Pirates.

Excerpt from Theodosia and the Pirates

Jackson's heart was in the right place, but his mind did not grasp how violating the first amendment would destroy the freedom that he had sworn to fight for. Jean Laffite, on the other hand, understood all too well. His grandparents had suffered at the hands of the Inquisition in Spain. His grandfather was killed under torture. His grandmother survived to tell the tale.

A dedication by Jean Laffite to his grandmother
"I owe all my ingenuity to the great intuition of my Spanish Jewish grandmother, who was a witness in the time of the Inquisition"

Jean Laffite knew that de Sedella was a Spanish spy who had once been appointed as Grand Inquisitor for New Orleans when Spain still ruled over Louisiana. But Laffite understood that in order for America to come out of the war unscathed with its constitution intact, it was important to allow de Sedella and his parishioners the freedom to pray whichever way they wanted. The United States did not need forced prayers in order to win the Battle of New Orleans. It needed gunpowder and trained artillerymen, which Laffite freely supplied on his own initiative and at his own expense. He supported the United States, because he wanted to live in a country free from religious oppression. A country that would not oppress people like his grandmother.

Today, possibly because of our current public education system, very few people understand that the first amendment guarantees of religious freedom mean that we can't tell other people what to believe, what to pray for. or what ceremonies their clergy must perform. Hillary Clinton does not support freedom of religion and Donald Trump will not defend it. Among the Libertarian presidential candidates, Gary Johnson, whose heart might be in the right place, seems very confused about the first amendment right to freedom of religion.

Of all the candidates, only Austin Petersen has demonstrated the intellectual ability to articulate and stand up for the freedom of religion guaranteed in the first amendment. And that's one of the many reasons that I support his candidacy for President of the United States.

Drawing Hanged Men and Other Forbidden Things

It just so happens that there was a curious item in the news recently, about a child in middle school who got in trouble over a doodle of a hanged man. He was suspended from school, but that was the least of his troubles. The principal called the police, and the child was interrogated without legal counsel and without the consent of his parents over the content of his drawing.

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/principal-calls-cops-middle-school-student-doodle/

This violation of a minor's civil rights seems to be not an isolated incident, but an ongoing process in this country. People are not merely afraid of violence. They are afraid of the representation of violence, no matter how crude. It's as if they fear that just thinking about a hanging will cause a hanging to take place.

When I commissioned the cover of Theodosia and the Pirates: The War against Spain, Colleen Dick and I actually discussed the possibility of having a hanged man in the painting. We eventually decided that would be too distracting, as it would draw the focus away from Jean Laffite and his family and their reactions. So there is only an empty noose in the picture to conjure up the idea of hanging a man. You can read more about that in this interview with Julia Hanna.

http://www.examiner.com/article/interview-with-the-artist-colleen-dick


I remember once when I was in 5th grade, I drew a picture of a naked woman in my spelling workbook. Spelling was at the time my worst subject, because I had spent third and fourth grade in Israel, writing only in Hebrew, and the English spelling system is rather a mess. Anyway, one day when I was absent, all the children in the class took my spelling notebook out of my desk and passed around the picture. It was not that great as a work of art, but it was representational, and one could clearly tell what it was. They each took a moment to look at the picture, then they put it back. I am sure that the teacher saw it, too. One of them told me about it later, and I was warned by my friend  not to draw things like that on a workbook again. But I never got in trouble.

I am not sure how a naked woman compares to a hanged man in the list of taboo subjects, but I do think things were much better back then, in terms of first amendment rights of small children at school.

In Theodosia and the Pirates, sex and violence do play a role, but they are rarely the focus. The focus is on how people react to those things, not on the things themselves. I enjoy writing about that period in American history, because the issues were so much clearer then, even when the government behaved badly. The question was not whether hanging was a bad or a good thing or whether children were allowed to think about it. The question was more about who deserved to be hanged and who had a right to hang people and why. It was a simpler time.