George Washington to Religious Organizations

the sincerity of my desires to contribute whatever may be in my power towards the preservation of the civil and religious liberties of the American People.

If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical Society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it...

While all men within our territories are protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of their consciences...

May your devotions before the Throne of Grace be prevalent in calling down the blessings of Heaven upon yourselves and your country.

...to be assured of my patronage in your laudable undertakings.

The liberty enjoyed by the People of these States, of worshipping Almighty God agreable to their Consciences, is not only among the choicest of their Blessings, but also of their Rights...

...it will be my earnest endeavor (as far as human fraility can resolve) to inculcate the belief and practice of opinions...

To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna-Charta of our country.

...and I readily join with you that 'while just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support.'

...all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the Community are equally entitled to the protection of civil Government.

... it will be my earnest endeavor, in discharging the duties confided to me with faithful impartiality, to realise the hope of common protection which you expect from the measures of that government.

... make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.

...however different are the sentiments of citizens on religious doctrines, they generally concur in one thing, for their political professions and practices are almost universally friendly to the order and happiness of our civil institutions...

For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens...

The liberality of sentiment toward each other which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this Country, stands unparalleled in the history of Nations.

Your sentiments on the happy influence of our equal government impress me with the most sensible satisfaction...

...in this land the light of truth and reason have triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart.