The foregoing expressions of the father of his country to his Hebrew fellow-citizens may be appropriately supplemented by the following correspondence of patriots of the early days of the United States.
In 1818 the Mill Street Synagogue was consecrated. Mordecai M. Noah delivered an eloquent address on the occasion, and sent copies thereof to distinguished statesmen. Among the replies received were the following, which are worthy of preservation:
Copy of a Letter from Thomas Jefferson.[22]
Monticello, May 28, 1818.
Sir:—I thank you for the discourse on the consecration of the Synagogue in your city, with which you have been pleased to favor me. I have read it with pleasure and instruction, having learnt from it some valuable facts in Jewish history which I did not know before. Your sect by sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal spirit of religious intolerance inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble, and practiced 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, for although we are free by the law, we are not so in practice; public opinion erects itself into an Inquisition, and exercises its office with as much fanaticism as fans the flames of an Auto-de-fe.
The prejudice still scowling on your section of our religion, although the elder one, cannot be unfelt by yourselves; it is to be hoped that individual dispositions will at length mould themselves to the model of the law, and consider the moral basis, on which all our religions rest, as the rallying point which unites them in a common interest; while the peculiar dogmas branching from it are the exclusive concern of the respective sects embracing them, and no rightful subject of notice to any other; public opinion needs reformation on that point, which would have the further happy effect of doing away the hypocritical maxim of "intus et lubet, foris ut moris." 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 its members on the equal and commanding benches of science, will exhibit them as equal objects of respect and favor. I salute you with great respect and esteem.
(Signed)
Thomas Jefferson.
M. M. Noah, Esq.