Benjamin Rush
to Elias Boudinot, July 1788
“. . . a most delightful sight. There could not have been a more happy emblem contrived, of that section of the new constitution, which opens its powers and offices alike, not only to every sect of Christians, but to worthy men of every religion.”
George Washington
Reply to letter from Hebrew congregation in Savannah, Georgia, 1789
May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.
Reply to the Hebrew congregations in Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, and Richmond, 1790
The liberality of sentiment toward each other, which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this country, stands unparalleled in the history of nations.
. . . .
The power and goodness of the Almighty, so strongly manifested in the events of our late glorious revolution, and His kind interposition in our behalf, have been no less visible in the establishment of our present equal government. In war He directed the sword, and in peace He has ruled in our councils. My agency in both has been guided by the best intentions and a sense of duty I owe to my country.
Reply to letter from Hebrew congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, 1790
The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy-a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.
May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.
May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.
John Adams
to Francois Adriaan Ven der Kemp, 16 Feb 1809
“I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize Men than any other Nation. If I were an Atheist and believed in blind eternal Fate, I should Still believe that Fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential Instrument for civilizing the Nations.”
to Mordecai M. Noah, 15 March 1819
. . . I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites, indeed as well disciplined as a French army, marching with them into Judea and making a conquest of that country and restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation. . . .
Thomas Jefferson
1787 August 10. (Jefferson to Peter Carr). “But those facts in the bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. … For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. … The pretension is entitled to our enquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand you are Astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on it’s axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed it’s revolution, and that without a second general prostration.”
1818 May 28. (Jefferson to Mordecai-Manuel Noah). “[Y]our sect by it’s sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal spirit of religious intolerance, inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble, and practised by all when in power. our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our religious, as they do our civil rights by putting all on an equal footing. but more remains to be done. … nothing I think would be so likely to effect this as to your sect particularly as the more careful attention to education, which you recommend, and which placing it’s members on the equal and commanding benches of science, will exhibit them as equal objects of respect and favor.”
1820 August 4. (Jefferson to William Short). “[T]hat Seer [Moses] had presented, for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust. … Moses had either not believed in a future state of existence, or had not thought it essential to be explicitly taught to his people.”
1820 September 1. (Jefferson to Jacob De La Motta). “[De La Motta’s Discourse Delivered at the Consecration of the Synagogue of the Hebrew Congregation, Mikva Israel: In the City of Savannah, Georgia …] excites in him [Jefferson] the gratifying reflection that his own country has been the first to prove to the world two truths, the most salutary to human society, that man can govern himself, and that religious freedom is the most effectual anodyne against religious dissension: the maxim of civil government being reversed in that of religion, where it’s true form is ‘divided we stand, united we fall.’ he is happy in the restoration, of the Jews particularly, to their social rights, & hopes they will be seen taking their seats on the benches of science, as preparatory to their doing the same at the board of government.”
1826 January 6. (Jefferson to Isaac Harby). “[N]othing is wiser than that all our institutions should keep pace with the advance of time and be improved with the improvements of the human mind. I have thought it a cruel addition to the wrongs which that injured sect have suffered that their youths should be excluded from the instructions in science afforded to all others in our public seminaries by imposing on them a course of theological reading which their consciences do not permit them to pursue, and in the University lately established here we have set the example of caring to violate the rights of conscience by any injunctions on the different sects respecting their religion.”
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Abraham Lincoln
Here are excerpts from an article written about Lincoln based on a book, Lincoln and the Jews. The book would be best to read, but next is the following article from Time Magazine:
“One of my most valued friends.” In all of the writings of Abraham Lincoln, we find that phrase used only once. It refers to Abraham Jonas, who was a Jew.
In a world where hatred or suspicion of Jews was near universal, our greatest President proves singularly free of this ancient prejudice. A remarkable feature of the lavishly illustrated and beautifully written work, Lincoln and the Jews by Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell, is to learn anew how many Jews Lincoln befriended in his too brief life and the consistency with which he opposed the common anti-Semitism of his time. Growing up, Lincoln knew no Jews, other than those whom he met in the pages of his well-thumbed Bible. Yet his was not a grudging admission of Jewish legitimacy but a genuine liking and even admiration. He even justified the appointment of one assistant quartermaster because he was Jewish: “I believe we have not yet appointed a Hebrew.” In fact, he had, but this appointment, Moise Levy, was a well known and traditional Jew, and the son-in-law of a prominent Rabbi.
Most famously, Lincoln countermanded General Grant’s General order #11, which literally banished Jews “as a class” from his war zone, from the Mississippi river to the Tennessee river, and from Northern Mississippi to Cairo Illinois. [Read more]
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Letter to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, April 15, 1945
. . . [T]he most interesting – although horrible – sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered
three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as
to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton
would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’ . . .If you could see your way clear to do it, I think you should make a visit here at the earliest possible moment, while we are still conducting a general offensive.
This quote is Eisenhower’s immediate, authoritative reaction after inspecting Nazi concentration camps in April 1945; its significance lies in several points:
- Firsthand verification: Eisenhower stresses he saw the camps personally so his testimony could counter any later denials or claims that reports were wartime propaganda.
- Credible witness: As Supreme Allied Commander, his account carried enormous weight—his choice to document and report the evidence made denialism much harder.
- Moral and historical record: His language (“beggar description”) conveys the scale and horror of the atrocities and helped galvanize Allied and public recognition of the Holocaust’s reality.
- Legal and political effect: His visit and letter provided material used in postwar prosecutions, liberated-population relief efforts, and early postwar narratives framing Nazi crimes as crimes against humanity.
- Anti-denial precedent: The quote is often cited today in discussions about eyewitness testimony, documentation of mass atrocity, and the importance of preserving evidence against revisionism.