Despite the Supreme Court's repeated invocations of America's Founding Fathers for First Amendment religion jurisprudence, George Washington's political thought regarding religious freedom has received almost no scholarly attention. This is unfortunate, for Washington's words and actions speak to contemporary Establishment Clause and Free Exercise issues. Washington, moreover, offers an alternative to Jefferson's and Madison's approach to church-state matters. The scholarly exclusion of Washington thus has led to a narrow view of the Founders' thought on religious liberty. This article sets forth Washington's understanding of the right to religious liberty. It pays particular attention to Washington's disagreement with Madison on the propriety of government support of religion. It also draws attention to the limits Washington placed on an individual's right to religious free exercise by focusing on how Washington dealt with Quaker claims for religious exemptions from military service.

Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved. —G. Washington, Letter submitting the proposed constitution to the President of Congress 17 September 1787

The charge that the Reformation heralded a triumph of confessional party over religion and fostered a spirit of division, discord, and strife is not an unfamiliar one. The thought of Jean Calvin, in particular, has been found responsible, by Karl Barth among others, for rousing its followers to militancy. As this essay will show, however, Calvin's actual positions point in a rather more irenic direction. Thus the first section of the essay addresses common misconceptions about the role of military metaphor in Calvin's writings. Section II draws attention to the integral importance for Calvin's theology of the Gospel call to unity, concord, and peace not only among Christians but all mankind. Section III examines Calvin's cautious treatment of actual fighting and war, and section IV draws together the argument by reference to Calvin's discussion of political authority and the tasks of the state.

The easy conflation of god(s) and country—what might be called the dual foundations of justice—is challenged and explored in Sophocles′ Philoctetes. Odysseus's consistent appeal to the common good and Philoctetes′ troubled attachment to a divinely sanctioned principle of justice are set at odds in a play where the fate of the entire Greek expedition at Troy hangs in the balance. While most read the play as a celebration of young Neoptolemus as he frees himself from the corrupt influence of Odysseus and, through his encounter with Philoctetes, grows in personal integrity, this essay maintains that Neoptolemus comes under the influence of both antagonists because each has something important to teach him. Rather than offering a simple morality tale, Sophocles′ investigation of justice in this play both reveals the depth of the conflict between the requirements of politics and those of piety, and criticizes the extreme embodiments of these perspectives in the figures of Odysseus and Philoctetes.

Walter Bagehot was Victorian Britain's premier political commentator on and analyst of the operation of governmental institutions and practices. He also wrote prolifically on international affairs, though this aspect of his work has been less remarked on. His attitude of quietism in foreign policy derived from his belief that, although in domestic affairs the age of government by custom and coercion had been succeeded—in certain developed countries, at any rate—by the practice of government through reasoned debate and compromise, in the relations among nations difficulties of communication caused by differences of worldview continued to make international relations the realm of power clashes marked by mutual misunderstandings. His response was to urge his country to have as little as possible to do with this more “primitive” arena of politics; and his warnings remain a classic statement of the dangers of unintended consequences and overly ambitious activity.