| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
05 Nov 2005 07:38:59 PM |
| Object: |
Fred, Jefferson, Reynolds, Everson down in flames |
PART I I I
quoted with approval by this Court, in Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, 730:
'The structure of our government has, for the preservation of civil
liberty, rescued the temporal institutions from religious interference. On
the other hand, it has secured religious liberty from the invasions of the
civil authority.'
The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at
least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church.
Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer
one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go
to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a
belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for
entertain- [330 U.S. 1, 16] ing or professing religious beliefs or
disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount,
large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or
institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever from they may adopt
to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government
can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious
organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the
clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a
wall of separation between Church and State.' Reynolds v. United States,
supra, 98 U.S. at page 164.
We must consider the New Jersey statute in accordance with the foregoing
limitations imposed by the First Amendment. But we must not strike that
state statute down if it is within the state's constitutional power even
though it approaches the verge of that power. See Interstate Consolidated
Street Ry. Co. v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Holmes, J., supra 207 U.S.
at 85, 88, 28 S.Ct. 26, 27, 28, 12 Ann.Cas. 555. New Jersey cannot
consistently with the 'establishment of religion' clause of the First
Amendment contribute tax-raised funds to the support of an institution
which teaches the tenets and faith of any church. On the other hand, other
language of the amendment commands that New Jersey cannot hamper its
citizens in the free exercise of their own religion. Consequently, it
cannot exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists,
Jews, Methodists, Non-believers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other
faith, because of their faith, or lack of it, from receiving the benefits
of public welfare legislation. While we do not mean to intimate that a
state could not provide transportation only to children attending public
schools, we must be careful, in protecting the citizens of New Jersey
against state-established churches, to be sure that we do not inadvertently
prohibit New Jersey from extending its general State law benefits to all
its citizens without regard to their religious belief [330 U.S. 1, 17]
Measured by these standards, we cannot say that the First Amendment
prohibits New Jersey from spending taxraised funds to pay the bus fares of
parochial school pupils as a part of a general program under which it pays
the fares of pupils attending public and other schools. It is undoubtedly
true that children are helped to get to church schools. There is even a
possibility that some of the children might not be sent to the church
schools if the parents were compelled to pay their children's bus fares out
of their own pockets when transportation to a public school would have been
paid for by the State. The same possibility exists where the state requires
a local transit company to provide reduced fares to school children
including those attending parochial schools,24
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ Footnote 24 ] New Jersey long ago permitted public utilities to charge
school children reduced rates. See Public Service R. Co. v. Board of Public
Utility Com'rs. 1917, 81 N.J.L. 363, 80 A. 27; see also Interstate
Consolidated Street Ry. Co. v. Commonwealth of Mass., supra. The District
of Columbia Code requires that the new charter of the District public
transportation company provide a three cent fare 'for school children ...
going to and from public, parochial or like schools ....' Act Jan. 14,
1933, 1, subd. 19, 47 Stat. 752, 759, D.C.Code 1940, 44-214 note.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
or where a municipally owned transportation system undertakes to carry all
school children free of charge. Moreover, state-paid policemen, detailed to
protect children going to and from church schools from the very real
hazards of traffic, would serve much the same purpose and accomplish much
the same result as state provisions intended to guarantee free
transportation of a kind which the state deems to be best for the school
children's welfare. And parents might refuse to risk their children to the
serious danger of traffic accidents going to and from parochial schools,
the approaches to which were not protected by policemen. Similarly, parents
might be reluctant to permit their children to attend schools which the
state had cut off from such general government services as ordinary police
and fire protection, connections for sewage disposal, public [330 U.S. 1,
18] highways and sidewalks. Of course, cutting off church schools from
these services, so separate and so indisputably marked off from the
religious function, would make it far more difficult for the schools to
operate. But such is obviously not the purpose of the First Amendment. That
Amendment requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups
of religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the state to
be their adversary. State power is no more to be used so as to handicap
religions, than it is to favor them.
This Court has said that parents may, in the discharge of their duty under
state compulsory education laws, send their children to a religious rather
than a public school if the school meets the secular educational
requirements which the state has power to impose. See Pierce v. Society of
Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 , 45 S.Ct. 571, 39 A.L.R. 468. It appears that these
parochial schools meet New Jersey's requirements. The State contributes no
money to the schools. It does not support them. Its legislation, as
applied, does no more than provide a general program to help parents get
their children, regardless of their religion, safely and expeditiously to
and from accredited schools.
The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall
must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest
breach. New Jersey has not breached it here.
AFFIRMED.
***************************************************
ADDITIONAL NOTES BY ME
MADISON
The following works of Madison was cited
Letter to a friend in 1774 1774: I Writings of James Madison (1900) 18, 21.
James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance (June, 1785)
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/memorial.htm
covers such things as aid to religion
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpts from James Madison's Detached Memoranda (written after 1817)
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/detach.htm
Madison's Detached Memoranda covered such things as
incorporations of Religious Congregations with the faculty of acquiring &
holding property real as well as personal!
Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent
with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In
strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative.
Better also to disarm in the same way, the precedent of Chaplainships for
the army and navy, than erect them into a political authority in matters of
religion.
Religious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings & fasts
are shoots from the same root with the legislative acts reviewed.
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"What is significant with respect to the date of its writing is the
Madison's "Detached Memoranda' interprets the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights and, unlike the Declaration of Independence, does not rest
exclusively on the laws of nature or nature's God, on Madison own "Memorial
and Remonstrance, or on Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,
although all are reported, confirmed, and defended. It would seem,
therefore that the "Detached Memoranda" would be the best source for
determining the intended meaning of the "religion" clauses of the First
Amendment (and the provision of article VI of the Constitution forbidding
religious test for public office) at least by the primary draughtsman of
both the Constitution and First Amendment.
The "Detached Memoranda" considers eight issues relating to religion
that have reached the Supreme Court in one way or another since the
Constitution was adopted: (1) ecclesiastical monopolies; (2) incorporation
of churches; (3) grants of public land to churches; (4) tax exemption of
religious entities; (5) the Deity in government documents; (6)
congressional chaplaincies; (7) military chaplaincies; and (8) religious
proclamations by the government."
Source of Information: Pfeffer, Leo, "Madison's ‘Detached Memoranda': Then
and Now." The Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, Its Evolution and
Consequences in American History, Edited by Merrill D. Peterson and Robert
C. Vaughan, Cambridge University Press (1988) pp 286, 87.
*************************************************
JEFFERSON
The following works by Jefferson was cited
Jefferson's Bill for Religious Freedom (Passed December, 1785)
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/statute.htm
**************************************************
As far as people, Madison was responsible for the wording of the Religious
Clause of the Declaration of Rights in Virginia in 1776, defeat of the
Assessment Bill to support Teachers of the Christian Religion in Virginia
in 1785 and passage into law of Jefferson's Bill for Religious freedom in
Virginia in 1785. He supported the passage of the Religious test Ban of
Article VI of the unamended constitution. He presented the proposed
Amendments in the First Federal Congress June 8, 1789 and steered the
passage of same. He was the Chairman of the House Committee that sat with
the Senate Committee that actually wrote the words of the Religious clauses
of the BORs
He pointed out the proper meaning of those clauses with his 3 vetoes while
President
Madison's vetoes: Some of The First Official Meanings Assigned to The
Establishment Clause (1811) http://candst.tripod.com/madvetos.htm and
with his Detached Memoranda after he retired from office.
Neither Jefferson nor his letter created church state separation.
The Principle of church state separation was embodied in the unamended
constitution while Jefferson was in France.
Madison had and has a major bearing on all forms of church state
jurisprudence (Over 100 state and federal court cases)
All court opinions in the realm fall under the accommodational position of
J Story or the strict separation position of Madison or some combination
of the two.
They are basically revivals of the old debate between the Storyites and
the Madisonians.
o Two Views: James Madison's and Joseph Story's
http://candst.tripod.com/joestor2.htm
As the information I provided in the following shows, Madison defined the
Establishment Clause and it was the Madison view that the USSC used in
Everson v Bd of Ed in legally (by court of law) defining the Establishment
Clause:
****************************************************
In Virginia, on the other hand where the Anglican establishment
bad been less generous to dissenters than the Congregationalists of New
England, it was rather the radical separationist view which triumphed under
the leadership of Madison and Jefferson. And this Virginia struggle was
the immediate background of the drafting of the First Amendment.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: John Witherspoon on Church and State, by James
Hastings Nichols. JOURNAL OF PRESBYTERIAN HISTORY, 42, (1964)
pp 171-73)
******************************************************
* Excerpts from James Madison's Autobiography
http://candst.tripod.com/madauto.html
****************************************************
Joseph Story v. James Madison from the grave
It can be said that the majority court in Marsh as well as the modern ultra
conservatives, some moderate conservatives, religious right,
accommodationmists and non-preferentialist speak the Joseph Story position
while the dissenting opinions in Marsh as well as some moderates and
moderate conservatives, liberals and strict separationists of all walks
speak the Madison position.
****************************************
While all of the opinions in Marsh are deficient to some degree as
a matter of historical analysis, it is clear in a policy sense that the
differences between the majority and the dissenters is but a revival of
the old debate between the Storyites and the Madisonians. As has been
shown, the framers did not resolve this dispute; politics and perhaps even
prudence dictated that they leave its resolution to posterity. These views
form the limits within which legitimate decision making may occur.
SOURCE: Public Prayer and the Constitution: A Case Study in Constitutional
Interpretation, Rodeny K. Smith, Scholarly Resources, Inc. (1987) pp.
257-259
******************************************************
*****************************************************************
Posting and reading from alt.politics.usa.constitution OR alt.education
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the U.S. and a couple from overseas as well]
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
****************************************************************
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