IV. Separation of church and state – is one of the oldest, if not THE oldest legal, governmental, constitutional, cultural norms in American history. PERIOD. It dates from Roger Williams in Puritan Massachusetts, 1636.
One of the Founders’ top 4 fears was religion. Their cures: 1776-1800 state constitutions, the Constitution’s Article VI, the First Amendment – all in very explicit language, especially the state constitutions.
This post exists for one reason: a long effort by the FAR RIGHT to obliterate “separation of church and state.” Their plan: LIE about what happened between 1636 and 1800. Below is only part of the MOUNTAIN OF EVIDENCE. You can also subscribe and read the monthly publication of “church & State” by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Oh yes. – one more thing, on the sinister side: look up the “14 characteristics of fascism.” One of them is a close connection between secular government and an official church. The Founders already knew of this – from centuries of religious persecution. The 1776-1800 constitutions are NOT an accident.
The Constitution has no references to gods, goddesses, or divine intervention. Civil War colonel, author, orator, Robert Ingersoll: “They knew to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They knew..recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought..knew the terrible history of the church as well..”
The Constitution’s only references to religion are EXCLUSIONARY – Article Vi bans a religious test for office; the First Amendment EXCLUDES the state from involving itself in religion, EXCLUDES religion violating people’s rights. The Article VI ban is “the most emphatic statement in the document” [no, shall, ever, any]. Supreme Court Justice Story [1812-1845]: “It had a higher objective: to cut off forever every pretence of any alliance between church and state in the national government.”
George Washington to Virginia Baptist General Committee [5/10/1789]: “no one could be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny.. every man..ought to be protecting in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.” [any DOUBT about this????]
1785 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: no government support of religion {“sinful and tyrannical”]; no loss of citizen’s rights for religious beliefs; religious test for office banned.
In the 1787-88 debates on the Constitution: the Federalists NEVER cited the Bible, not once. Madison, 1785 “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments”: “Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries.”
Ben Franklin [10/9/1780]: “When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself..it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
Congress [1/19/1829]: religious reasons did not and could not constitutionally motivate no Sunday mail delivery
Daniel Webster [3/4/1850]: warned against mixing religion and politics: “It is in the nature of man..his whole history, that religious disputes are apt to become warm..”
John Leland, Baptist evangelist: “Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles that he believes, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God, or twenty Gods; and let the government protect him in doing so.” [any doubt what this respected man meant, and – when he said it????????]
Maryland legislature passed the “Religious Toleration Act” in 1649, protecting all “Trinitarian Christians.”
William Penn: Pennsylvania was to be a “holy experiment” in religious and civil freedoms.
Madison: “..Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise [and] every expanded prospect.
1774 Massachusetts resolution calling for the Continental Congress to not colonist’s need “for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious.”
Sam Adams: “The Rights of the Colonists,” 1772: “As neither reason requires nor religion permits the contrary, every man living in or out of a state of civil society has a right peaceably and quietly to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.” [any doubt what he means???????]
1776 Virginia “Declaration of Rights,” Article XVI: “That religion ..can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience.” [the “reasonable person” can see echos of Amendment I ]
Northwest Ordinance [7/l3/1787]: “No person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments.” [note: this PRECEDES the Constitution]
At the Founding time – an established church meant a legal union of government and of religion – such as Roman Catholic in Spain, Presbyterian in Scotland, Lutheran in Sweden, etc. Compulsory attendance at state church, official creed taught in schools, tax support, etc.
Reverend William Tennant [So.Car.], 1777: “Petition of the Dissenters,” requesting the legal disestablishment of the Church of England [Prot. Episcopal Church]. The existence of an established church, Tennant declared, abridged the “free and equal liberty in religious matters..”
Leonard Levy: “The Establishment Clause. Religion and the First Amendment”:
– “To the generation that adopted the First Amendment an establishment had also come to mean..the financial support of religion generally, by public taxation.’
-“Evangelical demands for the separation of church and state, supported principally by Baptists and Presbyterians, ultimately prevailed in Virginia.”
-“Wilson, Randolph, Madison, and Spaight had attended the Constitutional Convention. Their remarks show that Congress was powerless, even in absence of the First Amendment to enact laws that benefited one religion or church in particular or all of them equally and impartially.”
-Madison [6/8/1789] “..proposed a series of amendments..The section on religion: “The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.” [any doubt what was intended????]
-August 15, 1789 House discussion of religion, Mr. Madison..believed that the people feared one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combine together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform.” [ would our “reasonable person” see in machinations by the current “religious right” – that the fears of the American populace in1789 have now come to pass – especially by a right-wing stacked “supreme court’???????????]
– “the First Amendment was framed to deny power, not to vest it.”
-“..John Leland..a Baptist preacher..advocated a radical separation of government and religion..and he contended that any sort of establishment of Christianity, including all state establishments, were, “all of them, Anti-Christocracies.”
– “The founding principle..was one subscribed to by Jefferson, Madison, and Christian fundamentalists [in 1774-1802 petitions to the Virginia General Assembly]..that to require a person to support even the religion of his choice denied him his freedom of choice and his right to religious liberty.” [any doubt what was intended?????????]
The same generations that wrote the Constitution and bill of Rights also wrote state constitutions. The following are from Edwin Gaustad’s “Faith of the Founders,” pages l34-l45. Consider: 4 states banned a “religious test for office” [ article Vi]; 8 states banned an active minister from serving in their state government; nearly ALL had language banning “establishment of religion” [First Amendment].
– 1776 Delaware, Article 29: “There shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this State in preference to another.” 1777 Georgia, Article KLVI: “All persons whatever shall have the free exercise of their religion..and shall not, unless by consent, support any teacher or teachers except those of their own profession.” [2022 U.S. “supreme court’ apparently ignorant of this??????]. 1776 Maryland, Article XXXIII: “All persons..are equally entitled to protection of their own profession. 1776 North Carolina, Article XXXIV: “..there shall be no establishment of anyone religious church or denomination..in preference to any other; neither shall any person, on any pretence whatsoever, be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith..nor be obliged to pay..for the maintenance of any minister or ministry contrary to what he believes right.” [obviously, the Roberts “court” ignorant of this!!!!!!!!!!!!]. 1776 Pa, Declaration of Rights, II: “..all men have unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience.”
1778 SoCar., Article XXXVIII: “No person, shall by law, be obliged to pay towards the maintenance and support of a religious worship that he does not freely join in..” 1777 Vermont, Declaration of Rights, III: “..no man ought..be compelled to attend any religious worship..support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of his conscience..”
The above is what the First Amendment means. PERIOD.
To repeat: all the above are only SAMPLESa of MOUNTAINS of constitutions, speeches, letters, petitions – WRITTEN records in black and white. A TOP fear, likely. NUMBER ONE, of the 1770-1800 American people, as an entity, REPEATEDLY said this: THEY FEARED ONE CHURCH OR A COMBINATION OF CHURCHES WOULD SEEK TO IMPOSE UPON THEM RELIGIOUS DOGMA THEY DIDN’T FREELY ACCEPT OR BELIEVE. From Roger Williams to the First Amendment – 150 years of records exists: AMERICANS, OF ALL RELIGIONS, DEMANDED SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. They absolutely did NOT want to be forced to attend a church against their will; they did NOTA want to be forced to subsidize ANY church against their free will; they did NOT want their lives controlled by religious dogma they did NOT believe in. PERIOD.
Repeatedly, “not on any pretense whatsoever” would Americans be forced to accept ANY religious practices that violated “the dictates of their own conscience.” PERIOD.
Incredibly, there are forces in 2022-23 America that say all the above is false – and would have YOU believe none of this, 12636-1800 ever occurred. Fundamentalist churches seek to impose THEIR religion on YOU. They have allies in the current “supreme court,” which is “Weaponizing Religious Freedom” [ Andrew Seidel: “American Crusade” – read this book, in YOUR OWN SELF DEFENSE].
The infamous 2022 “supreme court,” and earlier ones [Trinity, Espinoza] violating YOUR religious rights [and YOUR tax dollars!] are only part of this powerful, well financed, plot. The 6 Republican “justices” major goal is demolishing the “separation of church and state” wall of 200 years precedence.
Stay silent, don’t vote against it. – and they’ll succeed. against EVERYTHING. the Founding generations stood for, believed in, wrote down in many state and federal documents.
The “American Crusaders” that Seidel and others warn YOU about are real, are very serious. – in imposing
THEIR religious dogma on YOU. YOU going to let them do it?????????????
With Justice For All 