In September 1654, twenty-three Jewish refugees staggered ashore in New Amsterdam in the New World–blown off course, stripped of nearly everything, and immediately detained over an unpaid fare. Nothing about their arrival suggested they carried anything of merit.
But they actually carried an immeasurable value: an unbreakable promise made to Abraham nearly four thousand years earlier.
One hundred thirty-six years later, in a small seaport in Rhode Island, the first President of the United States would deliver the words that put that promise into force–and, in doing so, quietly guarantee the astonishing ascendancy of the nation he led.