Religious Tolerance at USAFA

FredFlash · May 17, 2006, 4:21pm

“The words “separation of church and state” appears in neither the U.S. Constitution, nor the Declaration of Independence, nor even the Federalist Papers. They are neither the law nor part of the legilative history of the law.”

This statement, my friend, reveals a basic ignorance of fundamental constitutional principles, and a particular ignorance of the concept of enumerated powers.

FredFlash · May 17, 2006, 4:22pm

The U. S. Constitution of 1787 was ratified with the general understanding that it was one of enumerated and limited powers; and that the national government had no power over religion. As the great and noble James Madison said: “There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation.” [Note 1]

To James Wilson, fell the responsibility to explain the new Constitution to the Pennsylvania Ratification Convention. In response to the allegation that there was no security for the right of conscience in the Constitution, Wilson asserted, “I ask the honorable gentlemen, what part of this system puts it in the power of Congress to attack those rights? When there is no power to attack it is idle to prepare the means of defense.” [Note 2]

Edmund Randolph at the Virginia Convention declared that “no power is given expressly to Congress over religion” and added that only powers “constitutionally given.” [Note 3] Richard Dobbs Spaight at the North Carolina Ratification Convention maintained “as to the subject of religion no power is given to the general government to interfere with it at all. Any act of Congress on this subject would be an usurpation.”

This understanding of the Constitution was not limited to those who attended the Constitutional convention. Identical arguments were made by such non-attenders as Issac Backus of Massachusetts, James Iredell and Samuel Johnston of North Carolina, and Thomas Tucker of South Carolina.

The First Amendments religion clauses are highly ambiguous. The word religion is not defined and the term an establishment of religion was novel in 1789. The first known interpretation of the First Amendment was offered by Representative T. T. Tucker of S. C., just days after the close of the First U. S. Congress he wrote, you will find our amendments calculated to amuse, or rather to deceive in a letter dated September 30, 1789 to his brother, Saint George Tucker.

During the Early Years of the Republic a political contest was waged between two basic interpretations of the First Amendment. One view was that of the Jeffersonian Republicans who interpreted the Constitution to exempt religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, from the cognizance of the government. The other basic view was that of the Federalists who held the Constitution to intend to prevent the establishment of a National Church, such as the Church of England.

During what the great historian Sanford Cobb referrers to as the Final Settlement (from 1789 to 1833) the issue of religious liberty in the United States was settled in favor of the Jeffersonian Republicans view that the duty which we owe to our Creator was exempt from the cognizance of the government. During the first 50 years of the Republic, the non cognizance interpretation of the U. S. Constitution, as articulated by James Madison, prevailed in every major political dispute over the meaning of the religion clauses.

One of the early political contests over the meaning of the establishment clause occurred in the U. S. House of Representatives in 1811 between the non-cognizance view of President James Madison and the No National Church interpretation of the Federalist.

Representative Laban Wheaton (Connecticut) and Representative Timothy Pitkin (Massachusetts) challenged President James Madisons 1811 veto of a bill incorporating an Episcopal Church in Alexandria in the District of Columbia. President Madison read the bill to establish rules and procedures, that could not be amended by the church, to govern the selection and removal of the minister of the church. Madison claimed the violated the establishment clause.

Laban Wheaton (Connecticut) was a Federalist with a devilish desire for government authority over the duty that we owe to the Creator. During the House debates on Madisons veto, he actually floated the idea of expanding and enlarging the two Congressional Chaplainships established in 1789 to impose a government-established religion over the entire ten miles square of the District of Columbia.

Wheaton argued that Madisons establishment clause principle was incorrect because Congress had already established two religions by electing, paying or contracting with their Chaplains. Wheaton deemed the meaning of the establishment clause to be of very great consequence. [Note 2}

Best I can tell, Representative Wheaton held the view that religion established by the people or by God (instead of the government) was not really religion. He complained, on the floor of the House during the debate regarding the veto, that the people of the District of Columbia were never going to have any religion and made the absurd statement that religion had been entirely excluded from the ten square mile area of the District.

FredFlash · May 17, 2006, 4:24pm

James Madison, according to his later writings, actually agreed with Wheaton that Congress had (improperly according to Madison) established two religions in 1789 by creating the Congressional Chaplainships. James Madison was ahead of his time with regard to religious liberty and perceived evil lurking under the plausible disguise of the Congressional Chaplains the eyes of others were sealed by custom to its inherent impropriety

Madison, in his post-presidency writings advised us rather than let a step beyond the landmarks of power have the effect of a legitimate precedent, it will be better to apply to the establishment of the Congressional Chaplainships the legal aphorism of the courts does not view as valid legal precedents trivial deviations from a principle or class it with slight mistakes forgivable in view of our human frailties. It appears Madison may have preaching that same sermon in 1811.

The same House of Representatives that voted 100 to 0 to pass the bill that Madison vetoed, voted 71 to 29 to sustain the Presidents veto. The No National Church Interpretation was rejected in favor of the Total Separation of Religion and Government interpretation of the President. James Madison was thus installed as the authority on the meaning of the religion clauses.

During the Early Days of the Grand and Glorious Republic it was always James Madison’s interpretation of the establishment clause that eventually prevailed in every dispute over its meaning. These early Church State disputes included the following:

Presidential Religious Recommendations

James Madisons view that government religious recommendations were improper prevailed in 66 of the first 74 years of the young Republic. President Madison himself made the mistake of trying to accommodate Congressional requests for proclamations during the War of 1812 while at the same time making it clear that he claimed no civil authority over religion. President Madison claimed that his four proclamations employed a form and language meant to stifle any claim of political right to enjoin religious observances by resting his recommendation expressly on the voluntary compliance of individuals and even by limiting the recommendation to such as wished simultaneous as well as voluntary performance of a religious act on the occasion. [Note 3]

President Madison’s wartime proclamations - according to Representative Gulian Verplanck of New York, in an 1832 speech in the House of Representatives that helped to defeat an attempt to pass a joint resolution asking President Andrew Jackson to issue a fasting recommendation to the people - were kept with too much of the old leaven of malice and bitterness and the Gospel of the Savior was employed by ministers and politicians to point political sarcasm and to rekindle partisan rage.

Future Congresses and Presidents took a lesson from President Madisons wrong step of mixing religion and politics and every President from 1816 to 1860 flatly refused to issue religious proclamations under any circumstances. In 1832, Henry Clay and the Counterfeit Christians in the Senate took advantage of an impending cholera epidemic and attempted to pass a join resolution requesting President Andrew Jackson to issue a prayer and fasting proclamation. Clay’s resolution passed in the Senate but it failed in the House without even getting an up or down vote, when Gulian Verplanck of New York concluded his great speech by urging the House to “leave prayer to be prompted by the devotion of the heart, and not the bidding of the State.”

Congressional Prayer

Contrary to the widespread myth, there were no daily opening prayers in the First U S. Congress according to the official records. If you know of any evidence of morning prayers in the official records of the First Congress, please tell me where it is.

Article III of the Northwestern Ordinance

Article III of the Northwestern Ordinance, according to some, obligated the government to support religion in the Ohio Territory. The U. S. Congress believed that it did not and several attempts to enact legislation to “give legal effect” to the support of the gospel interpretation of Article III never even made it out of committee.

Sunday Mail Delivery

The Sunday Mail dispute raged from 1810 to the development of the telegraph and railroad train systems. The subject of the controversy was an 1810 post office law that required the transportation and opening of the mail on Sundays. There were numerous attempts by the Christian Party to convince Congress to repeal the 1810l law, but they all failed. Representative Colonel Johnson of Kentucky, chairman of the House Post Office Committee, issued a famous report in 1830 that adopted James Madisons view that religion was exempt from the cognizance of the government. One of the many petitions from citizens supporting the 1810 Post Office law declared that the establishment clause was intended to, Leave the religion of the people as free as the air they breathe from government influence of any kind.

Ten Commandment Displays in Federal Courts

The 1789 Judiciary Act did not include a requirement for the display of the Ten Commandments in Federal Courts. I am not convinced that such a suggestion was actually introduced in Congress.

During the Early Years of the Republic (1789 to 1860) there were no disputes over one Nation under God in the Pledge of Allegiance, In God We Trust on the nations coins or government displays of the Ten Commandments. The Federal Government respected Gods authority over the conscience of men and refrained from using its legislative authority to issue religious advice to the people.

FredFlash · May 17, 2006, 4:25pm

Notes

[Note 1] Debates of the Virginia Constitution Ratification Convention; June 12, 1788; James Madison answering the accusation that Religion was not guarded in the Constitution because there was no bill of rights declaring that religion should be secure.

The honorable member has introduced the subject of religion. Religion is not guarded–there is no bill of rights declaring that religion should be secure. Is a bill of rights a security for religion? Would the bill of rights, in this state, exempt the people from paying for the support of one particular sect, if such sect were exclusively established by law? If there were a majority of one sect, a bill of rights would be a poor protection for liberty. Happily for the states, they enjoy the utmost freedom of religion. This freedom arises from that multiplicity of sects, which pervades America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest. Fortunately for this commonwealth, a majority of the people are decidedly against any exclusive establishment–I believe it to be so in the other states. There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it, would be a most flagrant usurpation.

[Note 2] The Debates In The Convention Of The State Of Pennsylvania, On The Adoption Of The Federal Constitution; December 4, 1787.

[Note 3] Debates of the Virginia Constitution Ratification Convention; June 10, 1788; Gov. Randolph speaking to the delegates; Page 204-205, of Volume III of The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Convention.

GOV. RANDOLPH. Freedom of religion is said to be in danger. I will candidly say, I once thought that it was, and felt great repugnance to the Constitution for that reason. I am willing to acknowledge my apprehensions removed; and I will inform you by what process of reasoning I did remove them. The Constitution provides that " the senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound, by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." It has been said that, if the exclusion of the religious test were an exception from the general power of Congress, the power over religion would remain. I inform those who are of this opinion, that no power is given expressly to Congress over religion. The senators and representatives, members of the state legislatures, and executive and judicial officers, are bound, by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution. This only binds them to support it in the exercise of the powers constitutionally given it. The exclusion of religious tests is an exception from this general provision, with respect to oaths or affirmations. Although officers, &c., are to swear that they will support this Constitution, yet they are not bound to support one mode of worship, or to adhere to one particular sect. It Puts all sects on the same footing. A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may he admitted to any office or public trust under the United States. I am a friend to a variety of sects, because they keep one another in order. How many different sects are we composed of throughout the United States! How many different sects will be in Congress! We cannot enumerate the sects that may be in Congress! And there are now so many in the United States, that they will prevent the establishment of any one sect, in prejudice to the rest, and will forever oppose all attempts to infringe religious liberty. If such an attempt be made, will not an alarm be sounded throughout America? If Congress should be as wicked as we are foretold they will be, they would not run the risk of exciting the resentment of all, or most, of the religious sects in America.

[Note 4] In 1812, it had been twenty-three years since Congress had requested the President to issue a religious recommendation. This strongly suggests that the First Congress did not believe that government religious recommendations were a wholesome practice except in extraordinary rare circumstances. Congress did not request the second proclamation by Washington nor the two proclamations issued by John Adams.

Links to Additional Sources of Information:

Read Laban Wheatons argument for the No National Religion interpretation at <a href=“A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875”>A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875;

Read the official record of the 71 to 29 vote in 1811 in the House of Representatives in favor of James Madisons interpretation of the establishment clause at <a href=“A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875”>A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875;

Read New York Representative Gulion Verplacnks 1832 speech on the subject of Presidential Religious Recommendations at <a href=“A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875”>A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875;

Read the 1801 petition citizens and inhabitants of Wayne County, in the Northwest Territory praying for the support of the Gospel and for erecting the buildings necessary for the celebration of divine service. <a href=“http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=010/llac010.db&recNum=435[/url]”>http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=010/llac010.db&recNum=435</a>

Read about the 1802 announcement of Senator Uriah Tracy of Connecticut that he would ask leave to bring in a bill the nest day to carry into effect the support for schools and religion in the Northwestern Territory. The official records show that Tracy did not attempt to introduce the bill. <a href=“A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875”>A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875;

Read about the 1802 appointment of a House committee to inquire into the matter of support of religion within the Territory of the United States Northwest of the river Ohio. The committee never reported the question to the floor. 
<a href=“A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875”>A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875;

Read about the Bill reported out of committee (but not passed) in 1828 that would have authorized the use of federal land in the State of Ohio for the support of religion. 
<a href=“A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875”>A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875;

FredFlash · May 17, 2006, 4:31pm

Dear TacticalNuke:

It is misleading to imply that the Separation of Church and State was developed in 1802 by Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson’s famous statement in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists was preceded by over two hundred and fifty years of statements regarding the Separation between Church and State, the Doctrine of Soul Liberty, the Right of Judgment in Matters of Religion, the Equal Rights of Conscience, the Separation between Religion and Government, the exemption of Religion from the Authority of Government, or whatever you want to call it. The final ruin of the Church State commenced in the early 1770s.

Elisha Williams was preaching the separation of church and state back in 1774 as the Right of Private Judgment in Matters of Religion. Founding Father Samuel Stillman was advocating for it 1779 as the line between the things that belong to Caesar, and those things that belong to God. Thomas Jefferson was not even the first one to draw on the idea of separation or the notion of a wall to designate, illustrate or explain the legal concept of no civil-temporal-government power over the duty which we owe to the Creator. Thomas Jefferson in all likelihood borrowed the “wall of separation” phrase from James Burgh.

James Burgh

James Burgh (1714-1775) was radical Commonwealth Whig who was one of Britain’s foremost spokesman for political reform whose writings influenced political thought in revolutionary America. Burgh brought to his writings a dissenter’s zeal for religious toleration and a distrust of established churches. Indeed, his antipathy toward ecclesiastical establishments was a logical extension of his staunch defense of religious toleration.

Burgh thought religion was a matter between God and one’s conscience; and he contended that two citizens with different religious views are “both equally fit for being employed, in the service of our country.” He alerted his audience to the potential crippling influences of established churches. Danger existed, he warned, in “a church’s getting too much power into her hands, and turning religion into a mere state-engine.”

Therefore, in his work Crito (1766, 1767), Burgh proposed building “an impenetrable wall of separation between things sacred and civil.” “an impenetrable wall of separation between things sacred and civil.” He dismissed the conventional argument that the public administration of the church was necessary to preserve its salutary influence in society.

*"I will fairly tell you what will be the consequences of your setting up such a mixed-mungrel-spiritual-temporal-secular-ecclesiastical establishment. You will make the dispensers of religion despicable and odious to all men of sense, and will destroy the spirituality, in which consists the: whole value, of religion.

. . . Shew yourselves superior to all these follies and knaveries. Put into the hands of the people the clerical emoluments; and let them give them to whom they will; choosing their public teachers, and maintaining them decently, but moderately, as becomes their spiritual character. We have in our times a proof from the conduct of some among us, in respect of the appointment of their public administrators of religion, that such a scheme will answer all the necessary purposes, and prevent infinite corruption;–ecclesiastical corruption; the most odious of all corruption.

Build an impenetrable wall of separation between things sacred and civil. Do not send a graceless officer, reeking from the anus of his trull, to the performance of a holy rite of religion, as a test for his holding the command of a regiment. To profane, in such a manner, a religion, which you pretend to reverence, is an impiety sufficient to bring down upon your heads, the roof of the sacred building you thus defile." *

Samuel Stillman

One of the founding fathers was a Baptist minister named Samuel Stillman. He voted in favor of giving legal effect to the U. S. Constitution as a delegate to the 1788 Convention of the Commonwealth Of Massachusetts on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution. Stillman had preached, since 1779, the necessity for a line between the things that belong to Caesar, and those things that belong to God. He maintained that the government ought not in any manner to be involved in the salvation of souls and that it had no authority to establish our sentiments in religion or the manner in which we would express them.

The authority for Stillmans principle of no government authority over religious matters was the Saviors directive to Render, therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s. It was most evident to Stillman that the Lord was trying to teach us that there are some matters where the government has no authority.

Conclusion

It is misleading to imply that the Separation of Church and State was first developed or formulated in 1802 by Thomas Jefferson. It was formulated in the early 1500s and Thomas Jefferson was merely one of hundreds of individuals who advocate it.

RTBdad · May 17, 2006, 5:20pm

Flash, as much as I agree with your post, it seems rather long for this forum. Perhaps a link to this information would have been appropriate.

Religious Tolerance at USAFA

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