All Things Profane and Sacred

I saw this on craigslist today and thought it was interesting:

The following is from a transcript of a May 14, 2004 Bill Moyers interview with Susan Jacoby:

"[...] in 1797 the Barbary Pirates were attacking American ships. And so, you know, President John Adams and signed in the Senate and the House unanimously signed a treaty that was arranged, the Treaty of Tripoli. And they were of course Muslims at the time in Tripoli. And one of the provisions of this treaty which was published in American newspapers and again ratified with no comment in the Senate, in the House and signed by President Adams, was that the United States is in no way a Christian nation is the exact statement." "Was in no way founded as a Christian nation. Therefore we have nothing. I'm paraphrasing now. We have nothing against they called the Muselmen then. They were reassuring the Barbary states that America, which was not founded as a Christian country, as the document states, was not going to interfere with their religious practices." "And this provision occasioned basically no comment. If the separation of church and state was not taken for granted even that early in the Republic by both the religious and the nonreligious in America why imagine the fight we would have over some agreement. You know let's say we signed a test ban treaty today and it said something like, 'We are not a Christian nation?'"