uakers, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Roman Catholics. Deist Ben Franklin asked for prayer during the Convention, while several months later George Washington spoke at a Jewish synagogue. During the Revolution, many members of the Continental Congress attended sermons preached by Presbyterian John Witherspoon. While Thomas Jefferson worked to separate church and state in Virginia, he personally raised money to help pay the salaries of Anglican ministers who would lose their tax-supported paychecks. In matters of religion, the leaders of America's Revolution agreed to disagree. Finally, unlike the French Revolution, the American Revolution brought forth what would become one of the world's freest societies. There were, of course, difficulties. During the "critical period" of American history, from 1783- 1787, the 13 states acted as 13 separate nations, each levying import duties as it pleased. As far as New York was concerned, tariffs could be placed on New Jersey cider, produced across the river, as easily as on West Indian rum. The war had been won, but daily battles in the marketplace were being lost. The U.S. Constitution changed all that by forbidding states to levy tariffs against one another. The Constitution also sought to protect property rights, including rights to ideas (patents and copyrights) and beliefs (the First Amendment). For Madison, this was indeed the sole purpose of civil government. In 1792 he wrote: "Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. . . . This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own." Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, helped restore faith in the public credit with his economic program. It was at his urging that the U.S. dollar be defined in terms of hard money, silver and gold. (At the Constitutional Convention, the delegates were so opposed to fiat paper money that Luthe...
