As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, historians are looking back at the founding-era documents that helped define the nation's earliest ideals. Among them is a little-known 1790 exchange between John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States, and President George Washington — a correspondence that helped answer a fundamental question facing the young republic: Could Catholics, long viewed with suspicion under British rule, truly become equal American citizens?The answer still rests today inside the Library of Congress.RARE, HISTORIC US DOCUMENTS TRAVELING COUNTRY ON 'FREEDOM PLANE' AHEAD OF AMERICA'S 250TH ANNIVERSARYAbout 50 feet from Dr.Kevin Butterfield's office in the Library's Manuscript Division sits the original letter Carroll sent to Washington, preserved among the George Washington Papers.Washington "was spending the entire year of 1790, more or less, connecting with the entire nation," said Butterfield, acting chief of the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
"He connected with the people because he believed that it was important as the new president that they interact directly with him and have a chance to see the new government in action."As Washington traveled through the states during his first year in office, letters poured in from religious congregations, civic organizations and local communities seeking reassurance about their place in the new federal government.Among them was a March 1790 address from John Carroll, who became the first Catholic bishop in the United States after the Vatican established the nation’s first diocese in Baltimore in 1789, and other Catholic leaders asking whether Catholics — long viewed with suspicion under British rule — would be fully included in the new republic.A portrait painting of George Washington by Constable-Hamilton from 1794 is held by the New York Public Library.
(Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)Michael Breidenbach, dean of the Honors College at Av...