The Great Pillars of American Liberty

Recently, I watched a noted atheist spit his venom against American Christians for standing up for the right of their kids to have access to the truth in the classroom, the truth about America's unique founding, a founding centered not just on the triumph of reason, as some wrongfully claim, but on the triumph of reason coupled with faith, particularly the Christian faith. Coming to the ACLU member's defense, one of the interviewers cited as proof that America was not founded by Christians – nor upon the principles of Christianity – the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli, which declared in Article XI: "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

He asserted this as legal proof, under the supremacy clause, that this must be and still is the case – but more than that, with key founder President John Adams' signature on it, a personal, in-your-face testimony against Christians and their incessant claims about God's hand in founding this nation.

Notwithstanding that such a claim contradicts everything in John Adams' writings to the contrary (we'll get to that in a minute), and the rest of the key founders, for that matter, and notwithstanding the testimony of two centuries before our founding, and nearly two centuries after that founding that embraced America's Christian tradition in Congress, in the courts, in presidential speeches, in the public school classrooms, and in state and local governments, without question.

Notwithstanding that little sidestep, here's another: The U.S. does not have and has not had the original copy of this treaty for at least two centuries (it is lost); the two originals that do exist (in Italian and Arabic) have no such phrase, no such clause in the treaty, period.

What we do have is a 'certified copy' written by a man, Joel Barlow, who brought to publication Thomas Paine's diatribe against Christianity, "The Age of Reason," and whose motives might be described as suspect.

The Avalon Project at Yale University, without assigning any motives to Mr. Barlow, notes of the blatant discrepancy:

A "poor attempt at a paraphrase," "defects throughout," "obvious and glaring," "extremely erroneous," a "famous phrase … [that] does not exist at all"; of these I have little doubt.

But returning to Mr. Barlow's motives in penning such a copy upon provisions that did not exist: his connection to the doctrines of the fallen angel Thomas Paine, and his own descent from his former involvement in the ministry into what was then dubbed "liberal Christianity" looms large, and helps unravel "the mystery."

A little over a decade after the signing of the Treaty of Tripoli, in an April 24, 1812 letter from James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, we read of Madison's concerns about Barlow's fidelity to representing America in yet another land, France:

Madison was concerned about the man's fidelity to his American commission, and common sense. John Adams had similar concerns. After denouncing the recent works of Tom Paine as "the Ravings and Rantings of Bedlam," in a July 15, 1813 letter to Jefferson, Adams moved to the subject of Tom Paine's publisher, Joel Barlow, who was "about to record Tom Paine as the great author of the American Revolution!"

To which Adams retorted, "If he was; I desire that my name may be blotted out forever, from its records." (4) For Barlow to even consider repeating this outrageous fallacy for the reading of future generations, demonstrated a tendency for easy manipulation by Paine, and if not that, then toward delusion, or rank dishonesty.

Finally, the original Treaty of Tripoli of 1805 that IS in our possession, and IS signed by a Founding President, has no such, Barlow inspired, anti-Christian clause. (5)

The bottom line: If this is the best Founding Era ‘proof' these historical revisionists can come up with against Christianity (and John Adams), it is pathetic. – An original treaty signed by Adams that is not the original, not signed by Adams (on the copy in dispute), at odds with both of the originals that we do have, declared by the then American Consul to Tripoli, Leander Cathcart, to be an "extremely erroneous" copy, at odds with the treaty that followed but a few years later, and written by a man whose motives and judgment were suspect. Pathetic indeed.

Equally pathetic is any attempt to attach the noble name of John Adams to a denunciation of America's godly beginnings.

A small sample of the real John Adams reveals just how deep the fraud of the anti-Christian crowd. When Adam's was asked by an educational group of youth to identify America's founding pillars, here is what he answered in a document that CAN be authenticated:

Years later in a letter to Jefferson, Mr. Adams further elaborated on what he meant that day:

This is typical John Adams, the same man who laid it on the line quite clearly that "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people," that it was "wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (8)

That "Statesmen … may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand." (9)

That "The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity, and humanity." (10)

And, eleven years before Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, "[that rights preceded government], rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws – Rights derived from the great Legislator of the Universe." (11)

Well, these are the roots, the Great Pillars that past and future generations of youth ought to frequently refer back to as learning and science move forward, these "eternal and immutable" principles that lay at the foundation of everything good – lest in the name of progress we pass down to posterity nothing more than a high-brow, high-tech house of cards.

But here's one more vital point: Adams would have nothing to do with the lie that passes around the university and public school system today as solid granite truth, that America's roots go deep into another soil, that of the amoral, libertine, European ‘Enlightenment.' Here is what Adam's said of that ‘illustrious' founding group:

He wasn't kidding. And the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, two world wars, the invention and perpetuation of mass murdering, liberty destroying communism and fascism, and now the socialist, world government promoting, secularist European Union on that continent, proved him prophetic. License is not liberty. The European Enlightenment with all of its anti-God, anti-private property, anti-limited government rhetoric is not the legacy this country's ancestors passed down to our children.

Yet it is to these latter ‘founders' that the ACLU and the revisionist ‘scholars' young and old, who have hijacked America's educational system, and rewritten America's story to fit their Godless, socialist paradigm, would have you and your kids look back to – look back like Lot's wife to the polluted, prideful, despotic people and political philosophies our progenitors barely escaped, back to the land where the battle cry ‘Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!" hid a more absolute, more thorough ‘Tyranny!'

Adams had it right. One pillar of salt is enough. We don't need 300 million more. Not on our watch.

1. Miller, Hunter. "The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: The Barbary Treaties: Tripoli 1796. Found online at: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1796n.htm

4. Cappon, Lester J. "The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson & Abigail and John Adams," University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1959, renewed 1987, p. 358.

5. "Treaty of Peace and Amity, Signed at Tripoli June 4, 1805, online at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1805t.htm

6. Cappon, Lester J. Quoted from Adams' answer to "the Address of the Young Men of the City of Philadelphia, the District of South Wark, and the Northern Liberties," p. 339.

8. Adams, John; Adams, Charles Francis, ed.. "The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Volume IX," Boston: Little Brown, 1854, p. 229.

10. Adams, John; Butterfield, L.H.. "Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Volume III" Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1961, p. 234, from diary entry for June 21, 1776.

11. Adams, John; Taylor. Robert J., editor. "Papers of John Adams, Volume 1," Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977– p. 109, as quoted in Grant, James. "John Adams: Party of One," Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2005, p. 62.

Some more on Barlow, a very curious member of the early republic generation who ended up buried in southern Poland.

Joel Barlow And The Treaty With Tripoli
The following essay was published in Church & State Magazine (1997).

by Robert Boston

he June 17, 1797, edition of The Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser was heavy with news of the day. The ship Diana was soon to depart for Liverpool, and local merchant John Savage advertised fine French wine, vinegar and almonds for sale. Edward Fox was eager to auction the services of an indentured servant—described as "a tolerable cook"—who had nine years left on her contract.

Newspapers of the post-Revolutionary War period frequently printed laws of Congress, proclamations and other government documents. Among the dispatches from Washington that day was a notice that the Senate and President John Adams had approved a Treaty of Peace and Friendship with the North African state of Tripoli. The Gazette printed the full treaty, consisting of 12 separate articles.

Most of the 12 articles dealt with commercial matters and procedures for maritime trade. But buried among the talk of ports, cargo and duties was a passage that stood out. Article 11 read, "As the government of the United States of America is not founded in any sense on the Christian religion—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims]—and as the said states have never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

The Treaty of Tripoli was unanimously approved by the Senate on June 10, 1797. It would today be relegated to obscurity like most early treaties were it not for Article 11. Thanks to that provision, 200 years later the treaty remains the focal point of controversy.

The treaty has figured prominently in the ongoing debate over whether the United States was intended to be an officially "Christian nation." Advocates of church-state separation point to Article 11 as evidence that public officials in the fledgling United States were well aware of the government's non-religious character and weren't afraid to state it publicly. Religious Right advocates have worked to undercut the treaty's significance and imply that Article 11 represented the views of only one man.

The man in question is Joel Barlow of Connecticut. A reluctant diplomat who had aspirations of being an epic poet, Barlow served as the United States' diplomatic agent to the Barbary States, charged with concluding treaties with three countries—Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis. Barlow spent two years in North Africa, hammering out agreements and working to the keep the United States from going to war with the Barbary States. Among his duties was overseeing the negotiations of the Treaty of Tripoli.

The conflict between the United States and the Barbary States is today largely forgotten, but in the 19th century it was the stuff of legend. Today considered an obscure figure, Barlow was a central figure in the drama. In his time, he was a leading political thinker, writer, diplomat and poet.

As the treaty's 200th year is marked, it's an excellent time to step back and assess the importance of the Treaty of Tripoli. How did the anti-"Christian nation" language get into the document? Is it significant? Why, two centuries after the fact, should anyone care what a musty treaty once said?

A little background of the relations between the United States and the Barbary States during the post-Revolutionary War period is necessary to set the stage. The Barbary States were essentially outlaw nations that made money through piracy or extortion on the high seas. The great naval powers of Europe, primarily Great Britain and France, were accustomed to paying annual sums in tribute to the Barbary nations to keep their commercial shipping safe.

The United States emerged from the Revolution with an uncertain position on the world stage, making the country's shipping easy prey for the Barbary pirates. Although the new nation was eager to establish trade overseas, the lack of a strong Navy left its merchant shipping vulnerable.

Great Britain, still smarting from the loss of its former colony, was determined to crush the United States' growing overseas trade. When American ships began appearing in the Mediterranean, British officials urged the Barbary pirates to prey on U.S. vessels. Algeria formally declared war on the United States in 1785, and within a few years, 300 U.S. citizens, mostly sailors, were in captivity in Northern Africa.

As Secretary of State under President George Washington, Thomas Jefferson advocated the use of military might against the Barbary States. Jefferson believed the United States should form a multi-national naval force of less powerful nations, including Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Italy, and attack the Barbary nations. In July of 1786, when Algeria captured a Russian ship, Jefferson hoped Catherine the Great would bring her navy into the alliance.

But the world political situation of the period doomed the alliance. Powerful nations like Britain and France, which benefitted from Barbary piracy, would not allow it. Sentiments in Congress ran in favor of paying tribute to the Barbary States, so in spring of 1785 the first U.S. envoy to North Africa, John Lamb, a former mule trader, was dispatched. It took Lamb a year to get to Algiers, and he soon proved to be incompetent.

Lamb was quickly recalled, and Jefferson's next two candidates for the job, John Paul Jones and Thomas Barclay, died before they could set out. In 1793 an exasperated Jefferson asked David Humphreys, U.S. ambassador to Portugal, to go to Algiers.

Humphreys arrived in North Africa in the fall of 1793, but by this time Jefferson had resigned as secretary of state. The U.S. government was preoccupied with problems along its frontier and increasing hostilities on the high seas with France. Lacking support from home, Humphreys too failed in his mission and was recalled. In 1795, Washington asked Barlow to try again.

This time Washington seemed serious about reaching an accommodation with the Barbary States. Barlow was authorized to promise Algeria, the leading Barbary state in their loose confederation, a payment of $800,000—a staggering sum at the time—and an additional $20,000 in naval supplies every year.

While in Algeria, Barlow met Richard O'Brien, one of the first seamen captured by Barbary pirates. Barlow sought and won permission to send O'Brien to Europe to borrow money to pay the tribute, but on the way O'Brien's ship was captured by pirates from Tripoli. O'Brien, under Barlow's direction, used the time to negotiate the famous Treaty with Tripoli and forwarded it to Barlow for redrafting and approval.

On Nov. 4, 1796, Barlow concluded negotiations on the Treaty with Tripoli with Jussof Bashaw Mahomet, Bey of Tripoli. The treaty was forwarded to the United States. By the time it reached the United States, a change of administrations had occurred. President John Adams submitted it to the U.S. Senate for ratification.

In a brief note dated May 26, 1797, Adams wrote to the Senate, "I lay before you, for your consideration and advice, a treaty of perpetual peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary, concluded, at Tripoli, on the 4th day of November, 1796."

Unfortunately, no record of the negotiations leading to the treaty exist. It's not known how Article 11 found its way into the document. Other treaties negotiated at the same time with Algeria and Tunis do not contain similar clauses. This has led to speculation that the provision may have been inserted at the insistence of officials in Tripoli, who wanted some assurance that the United States would not use religion as a pretext for future hostilities.

The Muslim regions of North Africa would have good reason to be concerned about this issue, given the centuries-long conflict between Islam and Christianity. Muslim leaders resented their treatment at the hands of the officially Christian countries of Europe. Tripoli's leaders may have viewed the United States as a mere extension of "Christian" Great Britain and expected similar tensions over religion.

To be sure, Islam was considered an exotic religion to most Americans at this time. Although Jefferson celebrated the fact that his Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom extended its protections to "the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, the infidel of every denomination," the fact is that Muslims were rare in 18th century America—if there were any at all—and most Americans continued to view Islam as a strange, even sinister, faith.

For their part, North Africa's Muslims had little love for Christianity. In 1784, Barbary pirates captured the U.S. schooner Maria and took the crew and passengers to Algeria, where they were paraded through the streets and jeered as "infidels" before being imprisoned.

In 1793, Algerian pirates captured the cargo ship Polly, plundered it and imprisoned the 12-man crew. The Algerian captain informed the American captives they could expect harsh treatment "for your history and superstition in believing in a man who was crucified by the Jews and disregarding the true doctrine of God's last and greatest prophet, Mohammed."

Incidents like this underscore the current of religious tension between the United States and the Barbary region, but they do not prove conclusively that Article 11 was an attempt to mollify those pressures.

The reality is that no one is certain how Article 11 got into the Treaty with Tripoli. "It's an interesting question—why this was put into the treaty," says Robert J. Allison, a Suffolk University history professor who authored the 1995 book The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815. Allison's research did not turn up any definitive clues, but, he adds, "I don't think you can ascribe a treaty to any one author. There are too many interests at play. Whether it came from Barlow or Tripoli will remain unknown."

Nevertheless, Barlow seems a likely candidate. Although he served as a military chaplain representing the Congregational Church during the Revolutionary War, Barlow later in life drifted into the Deist camp championed by his friend Jefferson. And, like Jefferson, Barlow was a strong advocate of church-state separation. (Also like Jefferson, Barlow was frequently accused of being an atheist by his political enemies.)

In addition to writing epic verse—he worked for 30 years on his epic poem The Columbiad—Barlow wrote treatises on political philosophy. In the fall of 1791, while living abroad in Britain, Barlow penned a book with the unwieldy title Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe Resulting from the Necessity and Propriety of a General Revolution in the Principle of Government. The work's second chapter attacks established churches.

Barlow biographer James Woodress notes in his book A Yankee's Odyssey: The Life of Joel Barlow that in Advice to the Privileged Orders, "Barlow makes a clear distinction between the state church as an ally of authoritarian government and plain religion. He argues that the wedding of church and state is a great evil and points to the blessings enjoyed by the United States without a state church. As a result, he asserts, 'in no country are the people more religious.'"

In a later work, A Letter to the National Convention, written during the French Revolution, Barlow urged France to adopt the church-state separation and ridiculed the idea that people should consult government for advice on how to worship. It would be just as absurd, Barlow asserted, "to appeal to such a council to learn how to breathe."

Other evidence points toward Barlow as the source of Article 11. Historian Morton Borden notes in his book Jews, Turks and Infidels that Mordecai M. Noah, U.S. counsel to Tunis under President James Madison, believed Barlow responsible for the passage. Although Noah was Jewish, he wrote in 1850 that he personally opposed Article 11, saying it "was engrafting [Barlow's] private prejudices upon a solemn contract made with a foreign nation…"

The other suspect for authoring Article 11 is O'Brien. O'Brien had been a prisoner in Algiers from 1785-95, during which he acted as a type of unofficial U.S. ambassador in northern Africa. O'Brien's experience left him skeptical of the view, promoted by some, that eventually all of Europe would unite with the United States against the Muslim Barbary states on the basis of a common Christian heritage. O'Brien grew more cynical during his captivity and realized that the Barbary States were mere pawns manipulated by the great powers of Europe.

In the end, how Article 11 got into the Treaty is less important than the reaction it received in the United States. As Borden notes, "What is significant about the Tripoli treaty is…its ready acceptance by the government. Not a word of protest was raised against Article 11 in 1797. . . . Whatever their personal feelings on the question of religious equality for non-Christians in particular states, all concurred that Article 11 comported with the principles of the Constitution."

In the Senate, the treaty barely caused a ripple. According to The Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the United States Senate, the treaty was read aloud on the floor of the Senate and copies were printed for the senators. No discussion or argument about the document was recorded, but the vote in favor was unanimous.

In recent years, some "Christian nation" advocates have argued that Article 11 never appeared in the treaty. They base the claim on research conducted by a Dutch scholar, Dr. C. Snouk Hurgronje, published in The Christian Statesman in 1930. Hurgronje located the only surviving Arabic copy of the treaty and found that when translated, Article 11 was actually a letter, mostly gibberish, from the dey of Algiers to the ruler of Tripoli.

But Hurgronje's discovery is irrelevant. There is no longer any doubt that the English version of the treaty transmitted to the United States did contain the "no Christian nation" language. Article 11 appeared intact in newspapers of the day as well as in volumes of treaties and proceedings of Congress published later, including the Session Laws of the Fifth Congress, published in 1797, and in a 1799 volume titled The Laws of the United States. In 1832 Article 11 appeared in the treaty when it was reprinted in Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States 1789-1815, Volume II—a tome that can still be examined today in the Library of Congress' main reading room.

Furthermore, in Hunter Miller's definitive 1931 work on treaties from this period, Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America, he notes that "the Barlow translation is that which was submitted to the Senate. . . . it is the English text which in the United States has always been deemed the text of the treaty." It's clear that the English version of the treaty, which Congress approved, contained the famous Article 11. Why the article was removed from the Arabic version of the treaty, who did it and when remains another mystery.

Article 11 soon took on a life of its own. Years after the treaty was ratified, references to it began popping up in speeches, articles and court rulings. Borden notes that "Article 11 had been cited hundreds of times in numerous court cases and in political debates whenever the issue of church-state relations arose. . . . Jews frequently referred to the article in discussions of a much-debated question, whether or not the United States was a Christian nation."

Borden also reports that in 1899 American diplomat Oscar S. Straus translated Article 11 into Turkish and presented it to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire in an effort to save American lives in the Philippines. The Philippines had recently reverted to American control, and Straus had to find a way to convince the sultan that the United States was not hostile toward Islam so that he would press Sunni Muslims there to accept U.S. rule.

In his 1922 memoir, Under Four Administrations, Straus wrote, "I had come prepared with a translation into Turkish of Article XI of an early treaty between the United States and Tripoli, negotiated by Joel Barlow in 1796. . . . When the Sultan had read this, his face lighted up. It would give him pleasure, he said, to act in accordance with my suggestions, for two reasons: for the sake of humanity, and to be helpful to the United States."

Today the Treaty with Tripoli is considered obscure, although it remains the occasional subject of vigorous debate between "Christian nation" proponents and advocates of church-state separation. Occasionally, the treaty has been quoted out of context by overzealous separationists. In 1955 an atheist group attributed its famous words to George Washington.

Ironically, the treaty failed to achieve its stated purpose of ensuring peace and friendship between the United States and Tripoli. By 1800 the ruler of Tripoli, angry because his tribute payments were late, was again harassing U.S. shipping. Jefferson, by then president, beefed up the fledgling U.S. Navy and sent ships to blockade Tripoli. In 1803 disaster struck when the U.S.S. Philadelphia ran aground in Tripoli, and its 300-man crew was imprisoned. Jefferson called for war.

In 1804 U.S. ships under the command of Stephen Decatur bombarded Tripoli, and the blockade was stepped up. The following year, Tripoli sued for peace. A diplomat named Tobias Lear negotiated a peace treaty; the new document did not contain the exact anti-"Christian nation" language of Barlow's treaty, although it did contain an article stating that the United States has no established church. The United States agreed to pay Tripoli $60,000, and all of the Philadelphia's sailors were released.

And what of Joel Barlow, the poet turned diplomat who sparked 200 years of controversy? In 1811 Madison sent him to France to represent U.S. interests, where the envoy met an unkind fate. Napoleon's armies were redrawing the map of Europe, and the continent was in turmoil. Barlow was invited in 1812 to travel to Wilna, Lithuania, to sign an important treaty with the French emperor. Napoleon's army had planned to spend the winter in Wilna, but his forces were routed by Russian cossacks and had to flee. As both armies stormed toward Wilna, Barlow and other refugees fled.

Straggling across the frozen wasteland of southern Poland in a horse-drawn carriage, Barlow contracted pneumonia. On Dec. 21 Barlow reached the village of Zarnowiec, where he announced he was too sick to travel farther. He languished for a few days in the home of the mayor but died around noon on Dec. 26 and was buried in the courtyard of a local church. He was 58.

Barlow's wife, Ruth, tried to have her husband's remains brought to America, but the downfall of Napoleon spawned so much chaos in Europe that the plan proved impractical. In 1930 a U.S. senator from Illinois introduced a bill to erect a monument to Barlow in Zarnowiec, but it failed to get out of committee.

Poland remains Barlow's final resting place. His grave is marked by a simple marble tablet with a Latin inscription that translates as, "Joel Barlow, diplomatic minister from the United States of America to the Emperor of the French and the Queen of Italy, died here while traveling."

( Robert Boston, "Joel Barlow And The Treaty With Tripoli," Church & State Magazine, June, 1997. )

And some biographical data on Joel the slippery:

JOEL BARLOW - The Sage of KALORAMA
Patriot - Author - Diplomat

Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State
To mark the two-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
birth of ambassador and author Joel Barlow, the
Woodrow Wilson House, which stands just yards from
the site of Kalorama – Barlow’s last home, is mounting a
very special exhibition. The exhibit will shed light on an
underappreciated and fascinating figure in the founding
of the nation. It will chronicle the life of this Connecticut farmer who rose from Puritan colonial beginnings to become a model man of the Enlightenment. A Yaleeducated wit, essayist and author, Barlow was a patriot
in Washington’s army, America’s first popular author,
patron of the work of Robert Fulton, friend of Thomas
Jefferson, a citizen of revolutionary France, liberator of
the Barbary captives and the nation’s first diplomat to die
at his post in service to the nation.

On view will be original copies of Barlow’s works,
including The Vision of Columbus (1787) which would
become Barlow’s epic poem and America’s first
bestseller, The Columbiad (1807). Important loans from
the National Portrait Gallery will include the Barlow
portrait by Robert Fulton and a plaster copy of the
Houdon bust, the original of which is in the White House
collection. Objects relating to Kalorama on loan from
the U.S. Department of State include Barlow’s portrait by
Charles Wilson Peale (1807), a Sheffield wine cooler
used at Kalorama that was a gift from Thomas Jefferson
and a landscape painting by Charles Codman of the
Kalorama estate.
In addition to being the nation’s first author to receive
fair pay for his work, Barlow’s career led him into many
adventures. As a Yale student, he fought at the Battle of
Long Island and later became a chaplain with
Washington’s army at West Point. After the Revolution,
he started the American Mercury in Hartford where he
became one of the satirical “Connecticut Wits” who
provided commentary on the hope and promise of the
new republic. In an effort to sell western land in Ohio,
Barlow made his way to France where he met Thomas
Jefferson and Thomas Paine and as the French
Revolution began to stir moved on to London where,
along with Joseph Priestly, Thomas Hardy and Mary
Wollstonscraft, he cheered on the republican wave
of revolution. His Advise to the Privileged Orders in
Several States of Europe, along with Paine’s Rights
of Man, was found to be seditious and forced Barlow
to leave England.

He became a citizen of revolutionary France and ran
for election to the National Assembly from the
Department of Savoy. Although he lost, it was while
spending time in the
Piedmont that he wrote his
most popular poem, The
Hasty Pudding, a rambling
epic about the warmth and
wholesomeness of the corn
meal pudding of his New
England youth. After the
French Revolution turned
into the Terror, Barlow came
to the aid of his friend Tom Paine as he was being
arrested, smuggling the manuscript for The Age of
Reason to safety and having it published.
Back in Paris in 1796, Barlow was called upon by
President George Washington to negotiate the
release of 119 American sailors held captive by the
Barbary States. Barlow personally won the favor of
the Dey of Algiers and secured the ransom of the
sailors with the promise of a new American frigate
and $800,000 in gold.

Barlow went on to take in a young American by the
name of Robert Fulton who had just left the studio of
Barlow’s friend Benjamin West in London. Barlow
taught the young artist and inventor French and
helped him secure a trial before Napoleon of an
improved submarine, the Nautilus in 1800. Barlow
helped to finance the submarine project but was
even more helpful to the young inventor introducing
him to the new American Minister, Robert Livingston.
Livingston took great interest in the promotion of
(see Barlow, page 3)

Barlow, from page 1
Fulton’s steamboat, underwriting the cost of the
working model that sailed the Seine in 1803 and
that would eventually sail the Hudson as the
Clermont.

Barlow continued his writings and literary work. In
one political essay, he called for a United States
of Europe some 200 years before the creation of
the European Union. In another tract, he called
for the freedom of the seas and trade which was
echoed in Woodrow Wilson’s famous 14 Points
and in Article 41 of the United Nations Charter.
When Jefferson became President in 1802 he
urged Barlow to return to his native land and take
a house in Washington which he described as “a
lovely seat…on a high hill commanding a most
extensive view of the Potomac.” Jefferson, along
with James Madison, also wanted Barlow to write
the first complete history of the United States and
promised full access to their papers for the
project. Barlow had been away from his
homeland for seventeen years, leaving before the
new nation’s Constitution had been established
and returning as Lewis and Clark were exploring
the great promise of the west.

On his way to Washington, Barlow stopped off in
Philadelphia to have his portrait painted by
Charles Wilson Peale and seek a publisher for his
revised version of Vision of Columbus. In 1807,
the final version entitled Columbiad was printed
by Fry and Kammerer, the best American printer,
with illustrations by Robert Smirke and plates paid
for by Robert Fulton. At a cost of $10,000, it was
the most expensive book ever printed up to that
time; each deluxe folio cost $20 a copy.
Once in Washington, Barlow purchased the hilltop
property suggested by Thomas Jefferson and
renamed the run down estate “Kalorama”, Greek
for “beautiful view”. He added stables and
planted an orchard, then commissioned Benjamin
Latrobe, the architect of the U.S. Capitol, to make
additions and build a gardener’s lodge and
elaborate entrance gate. He moved his entire
Paris library to Kalorama and sold off additional
copies to Secretary of State James Madison who
along with his wife Dolley was a frequent visitor.

He wrote Jefferson and exchanged gardening and
horticulture tips as well as commentary on
republican politics of the day.
During his years in Washington, he petitioned
Congress and wrote a tract, Prospectus of a
National Institution to be Established in the United
States in support of an old Yale friend, Josiah
Meigs, then President of the University of
Georgia, to establish a National University. Even
with Jefferson’s support, and funding from the
estate of George Washington in hand, the measure
was narrowly defeated in Congress. Meigs would
be successful several years after Barlow’s death
and became the first President of Columbian
College, now the George Washington University in
Washington, DC.

Barlow established himself at Kalorama as the
model man of the enlightenment. Like Jefferson,
he adopted the life of an agrarian republican and
surrounded himself with the latest inventions,
including indoor plumbing. Although he had spent
many years away from his native land, he found
that he had many friends and supporters. In 1810,
the new President, James Madison called on
Barlow to become the new Ambassador to France.
England was at war with Napoleon’s France and
both nations had set up blockades of American
shipping.

In July of 1811, Barlow set off from Kalorama for
the port of Annapolis where President Madison
ordered the flagship of the American Navy, the USS
Constitution, to carry the new Ambassador to his
post. Barlow took up residence at his old house in
Paris and endeavored to secure promises from
Napoleon to end the blockade of American ships.
At their first meeting, Napoleon agreed to many of
Barlow’s claims and agreed to work out a treaty.
They agreed to meet again to negotiate a trade
agreement, but when Napoleon left to fight the
Russian campaign, Barlow was forced to go to
Wilna, Lithuania to meet him. In route, Barlow
wrote his last epic poem, Advise to a Raven in
Winter, a commentary on Napoleon’s quest for
empire. With news of Napoleon’s defeat and
retreat from Russia, Barlow was forced to flee; he
caught pneumonia and died on December 26, 1812
in the Village of Zarnowiec between Warsaw and
Krakow. He was buried in the village churchyard a
world away from the Connecticut hills of his birth
and his beloved Kalorama.

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