First Muslim elected to Congress (Part 5)

Wallbuilders
By David Barton

By the end of Adams’ administration, extortion payments to the Muslim terrorists accounted for twenty percent of the federal budget.

When Thomas Jefferson became President in 1801, having personally dealt with the Muslim Barbary Powers for almost two decades, he had already concluded that there were only three solutions to the terrorist problem: (1) pay the extortion money, (2) keep all American ships out of international waters (which would destroy American commerce), or (3) use military force to put an end to the attacks. Jefferson discarded the first two options, rejecting the second as a matter of bad policy, and the first because: I was very unwilling that we should acquiesce in the . . . humiliation of paying a tribute to those lawless pirates.

He supported the third option, acknowledging: I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace through the medium of war.

Jefferson offered several reasons he believed this would be the best policy, including: Justice is in favor of this opinion; honor favors it; it will procure us respect in Europe, and respect is a safeguard to interest; . . . [and] I think it least expensive and equally effectual.
Jefferson formed this position long before his presidency; so once inaugurated, he began refusing payments to the offending nations. In response, Tripoli declared war against the United States (and Algiers threatened to do so), thus constituting America’s first official war as an established independent nation. Jefferson, determined to end the two-decades-old terrorist attacks, selected General William Eaton (Adams’ Consul to Tunis) and elevated him to the post of “U. S. Naval Agent to the Barbary States,” with the assignment to lead an American military expedition against the four terrorist nations. Using the new American Navy built under Adams, Eaton transported the U. S. Marines overseas; and when the offending nations found themselves confronted by imminent American military action, all but Tripoli backed down.

General Eaton therefore led a successful military campaign against Tripoli that freed captured seaman and crushed the terrorist forces. After four years of fighting, in 1805 Tripoli signed a treaty on America’s terms, thus ending their terrorist aggressions. (It is from the Marine Corps’ role in that first conflict with Muslim terrorists from 1801-1805 that the opening line of the Marine Hymn is derived: “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli . . .”)

American troops returned home, and the region briefly remained quiet, but by 1807, Muslim Algiers had resumed attacks against American ships and sailors. Jefferson, preoccupied with efforts to avoid war with both Great Britain and France, did not return military forces to the region.

Nevertheless, his actions had brought America its first respite to the decades old attacks; so when he left office, Congress congratulated him, noting: These are points in your administration which the historian will . . . teach posterity to dwell upon with delight. Nor will he forget . . . the lesson taught the inhabitants of the coast of Barbary – that we have the means of chastising their piratical encroachments and awing them into justice.

(Interestingly, Congressman Ellison took his ceremonial oath of office on the Koran owned by Thomas Jefferson. A pertinent question might be: Why did Jefferson own a Koran? A simple answer is: To learn the beliefs of the enemies he was fighting. Recall that Jefferson had been personally exposed to Islamic beliefs when attempting to secure peace between America and Muslim terrorists. Having been told by the Muslim Ambassador that the Koran promised Paradise as a reward for enslaving, killing, and war, Jefferson inquired into the irrational beliefs that motivated the Muslim groups and individuals warring against America.

Therefore, using Jefferson’s Koran was perhaps not as noble an image as Ellison tried to portray, despite his unfounded claim that the Koran is “definitely an important historical document in our national history and demonstrates that Jefferson was a broad visionary thinker. . . . It [the Koran] would have been something that contributed to his own thinking.”
The Koran did contribute to Jefferson’s thinking, but certainly not in the sense Ellison meant.)

Next installment: part 6 President Madison took office