PART V
"John" <johnf3900@hotmail.com> wrote:
:|
:|Further reading suggests that a fundamental
:|rationalization of this view is letters from Jefferson to various
:|people elaborating on his philosophy. Why should we create case law
:|based on interpretation of Jefferson's "apparent intent" rather than
:|what is actually in the constitution?
As has been shown in the previous installments, Jefferson did not create
the Constitutional principle of church state separation. That was done long
before his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.
The USSC defined the Establishment Clause in Everson v. Bd of Ed and here
is what they used to define it:
ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE: [This is based on Madison's view]
In spite of all that Rehnquist and his buddies have done this remains the
definition for the Establishment Clause: (The no aid portion has been
battered, to be sure, but as Locke v Davey shows, it still has some bite
left in it. Nyquist also remains good law)
The Establishment Clause as defined by the USSC in Everson v. Bd of Ed,
1947
The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at
least this:
(1) neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church.
(2) Neither can pass laws which aid one religion,
(2a) aid all religions,
(2b) or prefer one religion over another.
(3) Neither can force
(3a) nor influence a person to go to
(3b) or to remain away from church against his will
(3c) or force him to profess a belief
(3d) or disbelief in any religion.
(4) No person can be punished for entertaining [p*16]
(4a) or professing religious beliefs
(4b) or disbeliefs,
(4c) for church attendance
(4d) or non-attendance.
(5) No tax in any amount,
(5a) large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities
(5b) or institutions, whatever they may be called,
(5c) or whatever form they may adopt to teach
(5d) or practice religion.
(6) Neither a state
(6a) nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the
(6b) affairs of any religious organizations
(6c) or groups,
(6d) and vice versa.
Everson v. Bd of Ed, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=330&page=1
It can be added the all 9 justices were in agreement on this definition.
It also cited, considered and provided in full the following in
Appendixes: James Madison's MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE
AGAINST RELIGIOUS ASSESSMENTS
AND The bill sponsored and supported by Patrick Henry A BILL
ESTABLISHING A PROVISION FOR TEACHERS OF THE
CHRISTIAN RELIGION which Madison got defeated in the Virginia General
Assembly and passed in it's place Jefferson's Bill for religious freedom.
Thus, the rationale they used didn't just rely on Jefferson's letter
containing the metaphor.
EVERSON v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF EWING TP., 330 U.S. 1 (1947)
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=330&page=1
You read both the majority opinion and the dissent.
After you have done that you check out the citations that were given
Here are some of the essential Footnotes to the decision:
4. See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 162; cf. Knowlton v. Moore,
178 U.S. 41, 89, 106.
5. See, e.g., Macaulay, History of England (1849) I, cc. 2, 4; The
Cambridge Modern History (1908) V, cc. V, IX, XI; Beard, Rise of American
Civilization (1933) I, 60; Cobb, Rise of Religious Liberty in America
(1902) c. II; Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (1939) c. II; Sweet,
Religion in Colonial America (1942) 320-322.
6. See e.g., the charter of the colony of Carolina, which gave the grantees
the right of patronage and advowsons of all the churches and chapels . . .
together with licence and power to build and found churches, chapels and
oratories . . . and to cause them to be dedicated and consecrated according
to the ecclesiastical laws of our kingdom of England.
Poore, Constitutions (1878) II, 1390, 1391. That of Maryland gave to the
grantee Lord Baltimore the Patronages, and Advowsons of all Churches which
.. . . shall happen to be built, together
with Licence and Faculty of erecting and founding Churches, Chapels, and
Places of Worship . . . and of causing the same to be dedicated and
consecrated according to the Ecclesiastical Laws of our Kingdom of England,
with all, and singular such, and as ample lights, Jurisdictions,
Privileges, . . . as any Bishop . . . in our Kingdom of England, ever . . .
hath had. . . . MacDonald, Documentary Source Book of American History
(1934) 31, 33. The Commission of
New Hampshire of 1680, Poore, supra, II, 1277, stated:
And above all things We do by these presents will, require and comand our
said Councill to take all possible care for ye discountenancing of vice and
encouraging of virtue and good living, and that, by such examples ye
infidle may be invited and desire to partake of ye Christian Religion, and
for ye greater ease and satisfaction of ye sd loving subjects in matters of
religion, We do hereby require and comand yt liberty of conscience shall be
allowed unto all protestants; yt such especially as shall be conformable to
ye rites of ye Church of Engd shall be particularly countenanced and
encouraged.
See also Pawlet v. Clark, 9 Cranch 292.
7. See, e.g., Semple, Baptists in Virginia (1894); Sweet, Religion in
Colonial America, supra, at
131-152, 322-339.
8. Almost every colony exacted some kind of tax for church support. See
e.g. Cobb, op. cit. supra, note 5, 110 (Virginia); 131 (North Carolina);
169 (Massachusetts); 270 (Connecticut); 304, 310, 339 (New York); 386
(Maryland); 295 (New Hampshire).
9. Madison wrote to a friend in 1774:
That diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some.
.. . . This vexes me the worst of anything whatever. There are at this time
in the adjacent country not less than five or six well meaning men in close
jail for publishing their religious sentiments, which in the main
are very orthodox. I have neither patience to hear, talk, or think of
anything relative to this matter; for I have squabbled and scolded, abused
and ridiculed, so long about it to little purpose, that I am without common
patience. So I must beg you to pity me, and pray for liberty of conscience
to all.
I Writings of James Madison (1900) 18, 21.
10. Virginia's resistance to taxation for church support was crystallized
in the famous "Parsons' Cause" argued by Patrick Henry in 1763. For an
account, see Cobb, op. cit. supra, note 5,
108-111.
11. II Writings of James Madison, 183.
12. In a recently discovered collection of Madison's papers, Madison
recollected that his Remonstrance met with the approbation of the Baptists,
the Presbyterians, the Quakers, and the few Roman Catholics, universally;
of the Methodists in part, and even of not a few of the Sect formerly
established by law.
Madison, Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments,
in Fleet, Madison's "Detached Memorandum," 3 William and Mary Q. (1946)
534, 551, 555.
13. For accounts of background and evolution of the Virginia Bill for
Religious Liberty see, e.g., James, The Struggle for Religious Liberty in
Virginia (1900); Thom, The Struggle for Religious Freedom in Virginia: The
Baptists (1900); Cobb, op. cit. supra, note 5, 74-115; Madison,
Monopolies, Perpetuities Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments, op. cit.
supra, note 12, 554, 556.
14. 12 Hening, Statutes of Virginia (1823) 84; Commager, Documents of
American History (1944) 125.
15. Permoli v. New Orleans, 3 How. 589. Cf. Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Peters
243 .
16. For a collection of state constitutional provisions on freedom of
religion see Gabel, Public Funds for Church and Private Schools (1937)
148-149. See also 2 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (1927) 960-985.
17. Test provisions forbade officeholders to "deny . . . the truth of the
Protestant religion," e.g., Constitution of North Carolina (1776) § 330II,
II Poore, supra, 1413. Maryland permitted taxation for support of the
Christian religion and limited civil office to Christians until 1818, id.
I, 819, 820, 832.
18. See Note 50 Yale L.J. (1941) 917; see also cases collected 14 L.R.A.
418; 5 A.L.R. 8, 9; 141 A.L.R. 1148.
19. See cases collected 14 L.R.A. 418; 5 A.L.R. 879; 141 A.L.R. 1148.
20. Ibid. See also Cooley, op. cit. supra, note 16.
21. Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch 43; Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679; Davis v.
Beason, 133 U.S. 333; cf. Reynolds v. United States, supra, 162; Reuben
Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U.S. 50.
22. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 ; Jamison v. Texas, 318 U.S. 413;
Largent v. Texas, 318 U.S. 418; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, supra; West
Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 ; Follett v.
McCormick, 321 U.S. 573; Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 .
Cf. Bradfield v. Roberts, 175 U.S. 291.
In addition to the above the court included the entire text of Madison's
MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE AGAINST RELIGIOUS ASSESSMENTS
in an Appendix and SUPPLEMENTAL APPENDIX A BILL ESTABLISHING A PROVISION
FOR TEACHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION Which was defeated, partly as a
result of Madison M&R and which allowed Madison to get jefferson's Statute
for Religious Freedom passed into law in Virginia.
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The Dissenting opinion added these footnotes:
1. "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom," enacted by the General
Assembly of Virginia, January 19, 1786. See 1 Randall, The Life of Thomas
Jefferson (1858) 219-220; XII Hening's Statutes of Virginia (1823) 84.
2. Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296
; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S.
158; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 530.
8. IX Writings of James Madison (ed. by Hunt, 1910) 288; Padover, Jefferson
(1942) 74. Madison's characterization related to Jefferson's entire
revision of the Virginia Code, of which the Bill for Establishing Religious
Freedom was part. See note 15.
9. See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145; Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S.
333; Mormon Church v. United States, 136 U.S. 1; Jacobson v. Massachusetts,
197 U.S. 11; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158; also Cleveland v.
United States, 329 U.S. 14.
Possibly the first official declaration of the "clear and present danger"
doctrine was Jefferson's declaration in the Virginia Statute for
Establishing Religious Freedom:
That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for
its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against
peace and good order.
1 Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (1858) 220; Padover, Jefferson
(1942) 81. For Madison's view to the same effect, see note 28 infra.
10. Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105, 109; Martin v. Struthers, 319
U.S. 141; Jamison v. Texas, 318 U.S. 413; Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 ;
Tucker v. Texas, 326 U.S. 517.
11. Conflicts in other states, and earlier in the colonies, contributed
much to generation of the Amendment, but none so directly as that in
Virginia or with such formative influence on the Amendment's content and
wording. See Cobb, Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902);
Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (1939). The Charter of Rhode Island
of 1663, II Poore, Constitutions (1878) 1595, was the first colonial
charter to provide for religious freedom.
The climactic period of the Virginia struggle covers the decade 1776-1786,
from adoption of the Declaration of Rights to enactment of the Statute for
Religious Freedom. For short accounts, see Padover, Jefferson (1942) c. V;
Brant, James Madison, The Virginia Revolutionist (1941) cc. XII, XV; James,
The Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia (1900) cc. X, XI; Eckenrode,
Separation of Church and State in Virginia (1910). These works and Randall,
see note 1, will be cited in this opinion by the names of their authors.
Citations to "Jefferson" refer to The Works of Thomas Jefferson (ed. by
Ford, 1904-1905); to "Madison," to The Writings of James Madison (ed. by
Hunt, 1901-1910).
12. Brant, cc. XII, XV; James, cc. X, XI; Eckenrode.
13. See Brant, c. XII, particularly at 243. Cf. Madison's Remonstrance,
Appendix to this opinion. Jefferson, of course, held the same view. See
note 15.
"Madison looked upon . . . religious freedom, to judge from the
concentrated attention he gave it, as the fundamental freedom." Brant, 243,
and see Remonstrance, Par. 1, 4, 15, Appendix.
14. See Brant, 245-246. Madison quoted liberally from the Declaration in
his Remonstrance, and the use made of the quotations indicates that he
considered the Declaration to have outlawed the prevailing establishment in
principle, if not technically.
15. Jefferson was chairman of the revising committee and chief draftsman.
Co-revisers were Wythe, Pendleton, Mason and Lee. The first enacted portion
of the revision, which became known as Jefferson's Code, was the statute
barring entailments. Primogeniture soon followed. Much longer the author
was to wait for enactment of the Bill for Religious Freedom, and not
until after his death was the corollary bill to be accepted in principle
which he considered most important of all, namely, to provide for common
education at public expense. See V Jefferson, 153. However, he linked this
with disestablishment as corollary prime parts in a system of basic
freedoms. I Jefferson, 78.
Jefferson, and Madison by his sponsorship, sought to give the Bill for
Establishing Religious Freedom as nearly constitutional status as they
could at the time. Acknowledging that one legislature could not "restrain
the acts of succeeding Assemblies . . . and that, therefore, to
declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law," the Bill's
concluding provision, as enacted, nevertheless asserted:
Yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted
are of the natural rights of mankind, and that, if any act shall be
hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act
will be an infringement of natural right.
1 Randall, 220.
16. See I Jefferson, 70-71; XII Jefferson, 447; Padover, 80.
17. Madison regarded this action as desertion. See his letter to Monroe of
April 12, 175; II Madison, 129, 131-132; James, cc. X, XI. But see
Eckenrode, 91, suggesting it was surrender to the inevitable.
The bill provided:
That for every sum so paid, the Sheriff or Collector shall give a receipt,
expressing therein to what society of Christians the person from whom he
may receive the same shall direct the money to be paid. . . .
See also notes 1, 43 infra.
A copy of the Assessment Bill is to be found among the Washington
manuscripts in the Library of Congress. Papers of George Washington, Vol.
231. Because of its crucial role in the Virginia struggle and bearing upon
the First Amendment's meaning, the text of the Bill is set forth in the
Supplemental Appendix to this opinion.
18. Eckenrode, 99, 100.
19. Id., 100; II Madison, 113. The bill directed the sheriff to pay
all sums which . . . may not he appropriated by the person paying the same
.. . . into the public Treasury, to be disposed of under the direction of
the General Assembly, for the encouragement of seminaries of learning
within the Counties whence such sums shall arise, and to no other use or
purpose whatsoever.
Supplemental Appendix.
20. See generally Eckenrode, c. V; Brant, James, and other authorities
cited in note 11 above.
21. II Madison, 183; and the Appendix to this opinion. Eckenrode, 100 ff.
See also Fleet, Madison's "Detached Memoranda" (1946) III William & Mary Q.
(3rd Series) 534, 554-562.
22. The major causes assigned for its defeat include the elevation of
Patrick Henry to the governorship in November of 1784; the blunder of the
proponents in allowing the Bill for Incorporations to come to the floor and
incur defeat before the Assessment Bill was acted on; Madison's astute
leadership, taking advantage of every "break" to convert his initial
minority into a majority, including the deferment of action on the third
reading to the fall; the Remonstrance, bringing a flood of protesting
petitions, and the general poverty of the time. See Eckenrode, c. V, for an
excellent short, detailed account.
23. See James, Brant, op. cit. supra, note 11.
24. V Madison, 176. Cf. notes 33, 37.
25. V Madison, 132.
26. Brant, 250. The assurance made first to his constituents was
responsible for Madison's becoming a member of the Virginia Convention
which ratified the Constitution. See James, 154-158.
27. The amendment with respect to religious liberties read, as Madison
introduced it:
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.
1 Annals of Congress 434. In the process of debate, this was modified to
its present form. See especially 1 Annals of Congress 729-731, 765; also
note 34.
28. See text of the Remonstrance, Appendix; also notes 13, 15, 24, 25
supra, and text.
Madison's one exception concerning restraint was for "preserving public
order." This he declared in a private letter, IX Madison, 484, 487, written
after the First Amendment was adopted:
The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting
coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire
abstinance of the Govt. from interference in any way whatever, beyond the
necessity of preserving public order & protecting each sect agst.
trespasses on its legal rights by others.
Cf. note 9.
29. The third ground of remonstrance, see the Appendix, bears repetition
for emphasis here:
Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties
.. . . , [t]he freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had
strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents.
They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the
consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon
to forget it. Who does not see that . . . the same authority which can
force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the
support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any
other establishment in all cases whatsoever?
(Emphasis added.) II Madison 183, 185-186.
30. Eckenrode, 105, in summary of the Remonstrance.
31. Because the bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a
competent Judge of Religious truth or that he may employ Religion as an
engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretention falsified by
the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world;
the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.
Remonstrance, Appendix, Par. 5; II Madison 183, 187.
32. As is pointed out above, note 3, and in Part IV, infra, Cochran v.
Board of Education, 281 U.S. 370, was not such a case.
33. See text supra at notes 24, 25. Madison, of course, was but one of many
holding such views, but nevertheless agreeing to the common understanding
for adoption of a Bill of Rights in order to remove all doubt engendered by
the absence of explicit guaranties in the original Constitution.
By 1791, the great fight over establishments had ended, although some
vestiges remained then and later, even in Virginia. The glebes, for
example, were not sold there until 1802. Cf. Eckenrode, 147. Fixing an
exact date for "disestablishment" is almost impossible, since the
process was piecemeal. Although Madison failed in having the Virginia Bill
of Rights declare explicitly against establishment in 1776, cf. note 14 and
text supra, in 1777, the levy for support of the Anglican clergy was
suspended. It was never resumed. Eckenrode states:
This act, in effect, destroyed the establishment. Many dates have been
given for its end, but it really came on January 1, 1777, when the act
suspending the payment of tithes became effective. This was not seen at the
time. . . . But, in freeing almost half of the taxpayers from the burden of
the state religion, the state religion was at an end. Nobody could be
forced to support it, and an attempt to levy tithes upon Anglicans alone
would be to recruit the ranks of dissent.
P. 53. See also pp. 61, 64. The question of assessment however was revived
"with far more strength than ever, in the summer of 1784." Id. at 64. It
would seem more factual, therefore, to fix the time of disestablishment as
of December, 1785-January, 1786, when the issue in large was finally
settled.
34. At one point, the wording was proposed: "No religion shall be
established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed."
1 Annals of Congress 729. Cf. note 27. Representative Huntington of
Connecticut feared this might be construed to prevent judicial
enforcement of private pledges. He stated that he feared . . . that the
words might be taken in such latitude as to be extremely hurtful to the
cause of religion. He understood the amendment to mean what had been
expressed by the gentleman from Virginia, but others might find it
convenient to put another construction upon it. The ministers of their
congregations to the Eastward were maintained by the contributions of
those who belonged to their society; the expense of building meeting-houses
was contributed in the same manner. These things were regulated by by laws.
If an action was brought before a Federal Court on any of these cases, the
person who had neglected to perform his engagements could not be compelled
to do it, for a support of ministers or building of places of worship might
be construed into a religious establishment.
1 Annals of Congress 730.
To avoid any such possibility, Madison suggested inserting the word
"national" before "religion," thereby not only again disclaiming intent to
bring about the result Huntington
feared, but also showing unmistakably that "establishment" meant public
"support" of religion in the financial sense. 1 Annals of Congress 731. See
also IX Madison, 484-487.
35. The decision most closely touching the question, where it as squarely
raised, is Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U.S. 50. The Court distinguished
sharply between appropriations from public funds for the support of
religious education and appropriations from funds held in trust by the
Government essentially as trustee for private individuals, Indian wards, as
beneficial owners. The ruling was that the latter could be disbursed to
private, religious schools at the designation of those patrons for paying
the cost of their education. But it was stated also that such a use of
public moneys would violate both the First Amendment and the specific
statutory declaration involved, namely, that it is hereby declared to be
the settled policy of the Government to hereafter make no
appropriation whatever for education in any sectarian school.
210 U.S. at 79. Cf. Ponce v. Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, 210 U.S. 296,
322. And see Bradfield v. Roberts, 175 U.S. 291, an instance of highly
artificial grounding to support a decision sustaining an appropriation for
the care of indigent patients pursuant to a contract with a private
hospital. Cf. also the authorities cited in note 9.
36. See text at note 1.
37. " . . . but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification
to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Const., Art. VI, §
3. See also the two forms prescribed for the President's Oath or
Affirmation. Const., Art. II, § 1. Cf. Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333 ;
Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277; United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 .
38. In the words of the Virginia statute, following the portion of the
preamble quoted at the beginning of this opinion:
.. . . even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own
religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving
his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his
pattern and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is
withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards which, ceeding
from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement
to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind. . . .
39. See note 38.
40. See Bower, Church and State in Education (1944) 58:
.. . . the fundamental division of the education of the whole self into the
secular and the religious could not be justified on the grounds of either a
sound educational philosophy or a modern functional concept of the relation
of religion to personal and social experience.
See also Vere, The Elementary School, in Essays on Catholic Education in
the United States (1942) 110-111; Gabel, Public Funds for Church and
Private Schools (1937) 737-739
41. It would seem a strange ruling that a "reasonable," that is, presumably
a small, license fee cannot be placed upon the exercise of the right of
religious instruction, yet that, under the correlative constitutional
guaranty against "an establishment," taxes may be levied and used to
aid and promote religious instruction, if only the amounts so used are
small. See notes 30-31 supra, and text.
Madison's objection to "three pence" contributions and his stress upon
"denying the principle" without waiting until "usurped power had . . .
entangled the question in precedents," note 29, were reinforced by his
further characterization of the Assessment Bill:
Distant as it may be, in its present form, from the Inquisition, it differs
from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last, in
the career of intolerance.
Remonstrance, Par. 9; II Madison 183, 188.
42. If it is part of the state's function to supply to religious schools or
their patrons the smaller items of educational expense, because the
legislature may say they perform a public function, it is hard to see why
the larger ones also my not he paid. Indeed, it would seem even more proper
and necessary for the state to do this. For if one class of expenditures is
justified on the ground that it supports the general cause of education or
benefits the individual, or can he made to do so by legislative
declaration, so even more certainly would he the other. To sustain payment
for transportation to school, for textbooks, for other essential materials,
or perhaps for school lunches, and not for what makes all these things
effective for their intended end, would be to make a public function of the
smaller items and their cumulative effect, but to make wholly private in
character the larger things without which the smaller could have no meaning
or use.
43. Whereas the general diffusion of Christian knowledge hath a natural
tendency to correct the morals of men, restrain their vices, and preserve
the peace of society, which cannot be effected without a competent
provision for learned teachers, who may be thereby enabled to devote
their time and attention to the duty of instructing such citizens, as, from
their circumstances and want of education, cannot otherwise attain such
knowledge, and it is judged that such provision may be made by the
Legislature, without counteracting the liberal principle heretofore
adopted and intended to be preserved by abolishing all distinctions of
preeminence amongst the different societies of communities of Christians; .
.. . .
Supplemental Appendix; Foote, Sketches of Virginia (1850) 340.
44. Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for
the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is is a contradiction
to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a
dependence on the powers of this world. . . . Because the establishment in
question is not necessary for the support of Civil Government. . . . What
influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil
Society? . . . [I]n no instance have they been seen the guardians of the
liberties of the people.
II Madison 183, 187, 188.
45. Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments,
instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a
contrary operation.
II Madison 183, 187.
46. At least let warning be taken at the first fruits of the threatened
innovation. The very appearance of the Bill has transformed that "Christian
forbearance, love and charity" which, of late, mutually prevailed into
animosities and jealousies which may not soon be appeased.
II Madison 183, 189.
53. See also note 46 supra, and Remonstrance, Par. 3.
55. See text at notes 17-19 supra, and authorities cited; also Foote,
Sketches of Virginia (1850) c. XV. Madison's entire thesis, as reflected
throughout the Remonstrance and in his other writings, as well as in his
opposition to the final form of the Assessment Bill, see note 43, was
altogether incompatible with acceptance of general and "nondiscriminatory"
support. See Brant, c. XII.
56.
It is a matter not frequently recalled that President Grant opposed tax
exemption of religious property as leading to a violation of the principle
of separation of church and state. See President Grant's Seventh Annual
Message to Congress, December 7, 1875, in IX Messages and Papers of the
Presidents (1897) 4288-4289. Garfield, in a letter accepting the nomination
for the presidency, said:
.. . . it would be unjust to our people, and dangerous to our institutions,
to apply any portion of the revenues of the nation, or of the States, to
the support of sectarian schools. The separation of the Church and the
State in everything relating to taxation should be absolute.
II The Works of James Abram Garfield (ed. by Hinsdale, 1883) 783.
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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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