| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
16 Aug 2005 05:01:12 AM |
| Object: |
Madison & Jefferson, strict separationists |
Introduction to Religious Liberty in America
How the nation's Founders came to the conclusion that religion must be
separate from government
By Bruce Murray
FACSNET Editor
Prelude to the First Amendment
http://www.facsnet.org/issues/faith/liberty2.htm
[ excerpt ]
Virginia statesman Patrick Henry had proposed a religious tax, dubbed
"General Assessments," as a compromise between a single established church,
which in colonial Virginia was the Anglican Church, and complete
disestablishment. The General Assessment would instead support a "plural
establishment," whereby the state would fund a variety of denominations,
according to taxpayer preference. (A similar system of tax-supported
religious freedom exists today in Scandinavian countries and Germany –
where the government collects taxes to support religions that have been
granted "public law corporation status.")
Madison made the case against the General Assessments in his treatise,
"Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments." In it, Madison
argued that any government establishment in religion, even what in modern
terms might be called an "establishment-lite," constituted an abuse of
government power and a "spiritual tyranny" against the human conscience.
"The Religion of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of
every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may
dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is
unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence
contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men,"
Madison wrote.
Supporters of the General Assessment, including George Washington and
future Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, were not religious zealots.
They believed, as was the general consensus for centuries past, that
religion was necessary for the maintenance of morality and the underpinning
of civil society. "Let us with caution indulge the supposition that
morality can be maintained without religion," Washington would later say in
his Farewell Address to the nation.
Madison and Jefferson, on the other hand, were deeply suspicious of the
influence of religious clergy and institutions on government. Madison would
write that "the danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by
ecclesiastical bodies have not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S."
In the language of Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Jefferson
stridently declares compulsory state religion as "sinful and tyrannical."
Jefferson goes another step further by arguing that state-imposed religion
not only tyrannizes the human mind, but it also corrupts religion itself.
"The proscribing any citizen as unworthy of the public confidence by laying
upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument,
unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving
him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with
his fellow-citizens he has a natural right, [and] it tends only to corrupt
the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a
monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally
profess and conform to it," the act states.
Jefferson and Madison's chief concern, however, was to keep religion out of
government, rather than promoting purity of religion. But in keeping the
government free from religion, they also freed religion of government.
Thus, perhaps inadvertently, they created the formula that would allow
religion – in multiple forms – to flourish in the United States to an
unprecedented degree.
"Under the ‘voluntary way' in religion, the new nation developed a
revivalist and pietist Protestantism, permeating the culture, that was not
what Jefferson and Madison had in mind, and which generated multitudes of
sects, splits and new religions," Miller wrote. "Moreover, all the
religious groups of Europe crossed the Atlantic to become a part of the new
nation. Into this most ‘Christian' country there came the largest Jewish
population in Christendom. Into this most Protestant country there came
successive waves of Catholics, making the Puritans' ancient ‘papist' enemy
the largest religious group in the country."
[ end excerpts ]
***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.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 SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members]
For people in Hampton Roads you are also invited to join
NORFOLK/VA. B. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE MEETUP GROUP
http://churchandstate.meetup.com/47/
Virginia Chapter Americans United for Separation of Church and State
http://au-va.org/
***************************************************************
.. . . 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
"Dedicated to combatting 'history by sound bite'."
Now including a re-publication of Tom Peters
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
and
Audio links to Supreme Court oral arguments and
Speech by civil rights/constitutional lawyer and others.
This site is a member of the following web rings:
Freethought Ring--&--Freethought, Religion & Beliefs Ring
The First Amendment Ring--&--The Church-State Ring
American History WebRing--&--The History Ring
Let Freedom Ring--&--Religious Freedom Ring
Law Issues Ring--&--Legal Research Ring
****************************************************************
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