Refuting Congressman Keith Ellison's Claims About Thomas Jefferson

From the halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We fight our country's battles
On the land as on the sea.
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean,
We are proud to claim the title
Of United States Marine!

I wonder where he learned the Marine Hymn? His dad is a former Navy Nuke, and we've no Marines in the family. Possibly from an old black-and-white John Wayne flick on a snowbound Saturday afternoon? While I'm smiling at my little boy's game, his song also ignites a flicker of worry about his future and the future of all free people in this post-911 world.

Democrat Keith Ellison, who represents the Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota and is the first Muslim to serve as a United States congressman, in a slick political move recently placed his hand on a copy of the Quran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson while taking the oath of office. In explaining his actions, Ellison claimed that he used the Quran to be sworn into the United States House of Representatives because the Islamic holy book helped influence the founding fathers of America. Not surprising in our free and open society that strives to embrace people of all races, creeds, and religions, a lot of Americans are hailing this as a banner moment for religious freedom, comforting themselves with the thought that if Thomas Jefferson had a copy of the Quran, then that's as good as the founding father's stamp of approval from the great beyond.

The copy of Jefferson's Quran, used by Ellison as a prop in during his ceremonial swearing-in, is part of Thomas Jefferson's archive at the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. The Quran is one of 6,500 books Jefferson archived in the Library of Congress.

Congressman Ellison, who has also called for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, is laying it on pretty thick, saying that he used Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" held to the ideology that wisdom was available from many sources. So now he wants us to believe that Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States, relied on the wisdom of the Quran to build a democratic, free government?

What wisdom did Jefferson glean from his copy of the Quran? This question opens the door to a part of American History that has all but been forgotten.

In 1784, the U.S. Continental Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin to oversee the negotiation of treaties with the four Islamic Barbary States of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli. After the American rebellion against the British in 1776, American ships were no longer protected by the Royal Navy. As such, they were often attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by the "Dey of Algiers", the warlord in control of Algeria. Muslim pirates had already been enslaving thousands and thousands of captives from the African and Mediterranean coastline for ten centuries. This was a bloodthirsty and barbaric lot. They often killed the older non-Muslim men and women, keeping the younger women and the children as booty. The young women were often sold as concubines and had a high value in Islamic markets. Boys were often castrated at "eunuch stations" along the African slave routes. Many didn't survive the procedure.

Adams, Jefferson and Franklin discussed how best to handle this threat. Adams wanted to pay tribute, a plan that Jefferson opposed. In 1786, Jefferson, who was the American ambassador to France, and Adams, who was then serving in Britain as the American Ambassador tried to negotiate a peace treaty with the Ambassador of the formidable "Dey of Algiers". And for the next fifteen years, the American government paid a tribute to the Barbary States for the safe passage of ships and the return of American hostages to the tune of about 20 percent of the U.S.'s annual revenues. When Jefferson became President, he sent frigates to the Barbary coast to defend American interests--The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid. With the type of courage our leaders seem to be lacking today, Jefferson declared unequivocally that America would spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute."

Wafting through the pines, I hear the thin, piping voice of my nine-year-old as he plays at the imaginary war game of most little boys--

Here's health to you and our Corps.
Which we are proud to serve.
In many a strife we've fought for life
And never lost our nerve.

In 1805, U.S. Marines marched from Egypt to Tripolitania, across the searing desert. Tripoli surrendered and the American slaves were freed. Finally, the Barbary States officially agreed to stop their piracy and slavery.

I'm glad my son knows the Marine Hymn. It's a song about Thomas Jefferson's victory over the Muslim threat during his presidency. The actions of the brave Marines in these wars is forever captures in the words, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli ..."

Surprisingly, I find myself agreeing with Congressman Ellison that Thomas Jefferson was "a visionary". Indeed. But that's where my agreement with Ellison ends. The founding father didn't use the Quran to glean wisdom about democracy or how to form a free society as the crafty Congressman from Minnesota would like to have us believe. Thomas Jefferson used his knowledge about Islamic practices and law, no doubt gleaned from his reading of his copy of the Quran, to vanquish the bloodthirsty Islamic Barbary Pirates.

I will be telling my little boy the story about the brave song he so enjoys singing. In our post-911 world, we all need to brush up on our history.