"There will probably be found few persons in this, or any other Christian country, who would deliberately contend, that it was unreasonable, or unjust to foster and encourage the Christian religion generally, as a matter of sound policy, as well as of revealed truth. In fact, every American colony, from its foundation down to the revolution, with the exception of Rhode Island, (if, indeed, that state be an exception,) did openly, by the whole course of its laws and institutions, support and sustain, in some form, the Christian religion; and almost invariably gave a peculiar sanction to some of its fundamental doctrines. And this has continued to be the case in some of the states down to the present period, with out the slightest suspicion, that it was against the principles of public law, or republican liberty. Indeed, in a republic, there would seem to be a peculiar propriety in viewing the Christian religion, as the great basis, on which it must rest for its support and permanence. [....] Probably, at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state. [...] An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation. [....] The real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus cut off the means of religious persecution, (the vice and pest of former ages,) and of the subversion of the rights of conscience in matters of religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age. [....] It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects, thus exemplified in our domestic, as well as in foreign annals, that it was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject." - Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice appointed by James Madison, Commentaries on The Constitution of The United States, 1833.
"The same policy, which introduced into the Constitution the prohibition of any religious test, led to this more extended prohibition of the interference of congress in religious concerns. We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity, (which none could hold in more reverence, than the framers of the Constitution) but to a dread by the people of the influence of ecclesiastical power in matters of government; a dread, which their ancestors brought with them from the parent country, and which, unhappily for human infirmity, their own conduct, after their emigration, had not, in any just degree, tended to diminish. It was also obvious, from the numerous and powerful sects existing in the United States, that there would be perpetual temptations to struggles for ascendancy in the National councils, if any one might thereby hope to found a permanent and exclusive national establishment of its own; and religious persecutions might thus be introduced, to an extent utterly subversive of the true interests and good order of the Republic. The most effectual mode of suppressing the evil, in the view of the people, was, to strike down the temptations to its introduction. [....] The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion, the being, and attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility to Him for all our actions, founded upon moral accountability; a future state of rewards and punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social, and benevolent virtues; --- these never can be a matter of indifference in any well-ordered community. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive, how any civilized society can well exist without them. And, at all events, it is impossible for those, who believe in the truth of Christianity, as a divine revelation, to doubt, that it is the especial duty of government to foster, and encourage it among all the citizens and subjects. [....] Probably, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the Amendment of it now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State. [...] An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation." - Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice appointed by James Madison, A Familiar Exposition of The Constitution of The United States, 1840.The wording of the First Amendment itself provides clues to its true meaning which affirm Story's exposition.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."Is a child or faculty member praying in school violating the "establishment" clause of the First Amendment? Let's examine the language. The word "establishment" in the First Amendment means the same thing it means in the Constitution's preamble.
"We the People of the United States [....] do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."What does "establish" mean in this instance? Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, appointed by James Madison, explains.
"The received general meanings, if not the only meanings of the word 'establish,' are, to settle firmly, to confirm, to fix, to form or modify, to found, to build firmly, to erect permanently. [....] In the constitution itself, the word is found with the same general sense now insisted on; that is, in the sense of, to create, to form, to make, to construct, to settle, to build up with a view to permanence. [....] The constitution itself also uniformly uses the word "establish" in the general sense, and never in this peculiar and narrow sense. It speaks in the preamble [...] that the people do ordain and establish this constitution. [....] In one of the amendments, it provides, that congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. It is plain, that to construe the word in any of these cases, as equivalent to designate, or point out, would be absolutely absurd. The clear import of the word is, to create, and form, and fix in a settled manner." - Joseph Story, Commentaries on The Constitution of The United States, Power to establish Post-Offices and Post Roads, 1833.Congress shall make no law "respecting," i.e., with respect to, with regard to, or pertaining to, an "establishment of religion;" i.e., shall make no law the purpose of which is the creation of a national church; specifically ordaining one Christian denomination in preference to others (and thereby abridging the religious liberties of those other denominations). This prohibits the creation of a religious institution, not as Story explains above, the acknowledgement or support of religious values.
The House and Senate Judiciary committees provide further explication.
"What is an establishment of religion? It must have a creed defining what a man must believe; it must have rites and ordinances which believers must observe; it must have ministers of defined qualifications to teach the doctrines and administer the rites; it must have tests for the submissive and penalties for the nonconformist. There never was an established religion without all these. [....] Had the people, during the revolution, had any suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that revolution would have been strangled in its cradle. At the time of the adoption of the constitution and the amendments; the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect. Any attempt to level and discard all religion would have been viewed with universal indignation. The object was not to substitute Judaism, or Mohammedanism, or infidelity, but to prevent rivalry among sects to the exclusion of others. It [Christianity] must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests. Laws will not have permanence or power without the sanction of religious sentiment, without a firm belief that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues and punish our vices. In this age, there can be no substitution for Christianity: that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions. That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants. There is a great and very prevalent error on this subject in the opinion that those who organized this government did not legislate on religion" - House Judiciary Committee, March, 27, 1854.
"The clause speaks of 'an establishment of religion.' What is meant by that expression? It referred, without doubt, to that establishment which existed in the mother-country, and its meaning is to be ascertained by ascertaining what that establishment was. It was the connection, with the state, of a particular religious society [...] in exclusion of, or in preference to, any other, by giving to its members exclusive political rights, and by compelling the attendance of those who rejected its communion upon its worship or religious observances. [....] Take, as an example, the chaplains to Congress. At every session two chaplains are elected,—one by each House,—whose duty is to offer prayers daily in the two Houses, and to conduct religious services weekly in the Hall of the House of Representatives. Now, in this no religion, no form of faith, no denomination of religious professors, is established in preference to any other, or has any peculiar privileges conferred upon it. [....] The whole view of the petitioners seems founded upon mistaken conceptions of the meaning of the Constitution. [....] Our fathers were true lovers of liberty, and utterly opposed to any constraint upon the rights of conscience. They intended, by this amendment, to prohibit 'an establishment of religion' such as the English Church presented, or any thing like it. But they had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people; they did not intend to prohibit a just expression of religious devotion by the legislators of the nation, even in their public character as legislators. [...] They did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy." - Senate Judiciary Committee, January 19, 1853.Far from being fearful of religion, the Continental Congress in 1774, declared.
"The good people of the several colonies [...] have severally elected, constituted, and appointed deputies to meet, and sit in general Congress, in the city of Philadelphia, in order to obtain such establishment, as that their religion, laws, and liberties, may not be subverted." - Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, 1774.Obviously a person praying on school grounds is not Congress, nor does it establish a church, or designate one Christian denomination as the official denomination of the whole nation in preference to others. Likewise it doesn't "define what a man must believe; it does not impose rites and ordinances which others must observe; it does not utilize ministers of defined qualifications to teach the doctrines and administer the rites; nor does it establish tests for the submissive and penalties for the nonconformist." A nativity scene on public property does not constitute the establishment of "the English Church [...] or any thing like it."
"They (the Founders) could not admit this (liberty of conscience) as a civil justification of human sacrifices, or parricide, infanticide, thuggism, or of such modes of worship as the disgusting and corrupting rites of the Dionysia, Aphrodisia, Eleusinia, and other festivals of Greece and Rome. They did not mean that the pure moral customs which Christianity has introduced should be without legal protection because some pagan, or other religionist, or anti-religionist, should advocate as matter of conscience concubinage, polygamy, incest, free love, and free divorce, or any of them. They did not mean that phallic processions and satyric dances and obscene songs and indecent statues and paintings of ancient or of modern paganism might be introduced under the profession of religion, or pleasure, or conscience, to seduce the young and the ignorant into a Corinthian degradation; to offend the moral sentiment of a refined Christian people; and to compel Christian modesty to associate with the nudity and impurity of Polynesian or of Spartan women. No Christian people could possibly allow such things. [....] Law can never become entirely infidel; for it is essentially founded on the moral customs of men and the very generating principle of these is most frequently religion." - Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Commonwealth v. Nesbit, 1859. (Parentheses mine.)
"This court is [...] invested with the power to punish not only open violations of decency and morality, but also whatever secretly tends to undermine the principles of society [....] Whatever tends to the destruction of morality in general may be punished criminally. Crimes are public offenses not just because they are perpetrated publicly, but because their effect is to injure the public. Burglary, though done in secret, is a public offense; and secretly destroying fences is indictable [...] hence, it follows, that an offence may be punishable if in its nature and by its example it tends to the corruption of morals; although it be not committed in public. [....] The destruction of morality renders the power of the government invalid. [....] The corruption of the public mind, in general, and debauching the manners of the youth, in particular, by lewd and obscene pictures exhibited to view, must necessarily be attended with the most injurious consequences. [....] No man is permitted to corrupt the morals of the people; secret poison cannot be thus disseminated." - Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Commonwealth v. Sharpless, 1815.Contrary to modern sentiment indecency is not a "right."
"Government itself is a venerable ordinance of God, and forasmuch it is principally devised and intended [...] to make and establish such laws as shall best preserve true Christian and civil liberty, in opposition to all unChristian, licentious, and unjust practices." - Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Updegraph v. Commonwealth, 1824.
"This toleration, thus granted, is a religious toleration; it is the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, with two provisos, one of which, that which guards against acts of licentiousness, testifies to the Christian construction." - Supreme Court of South Carolina, City Council of Charleston v. S.A. Benjamin, 1846.
"The liberty of conscience, hereby granted, shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousnes." - Constitution of New York, 1777.
"Liberty of conscience [...] shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness." - Supreme Court of New York, Lindenmuller v. The People, 1861.
"Freedom shall not be construed to excuse acts of licentiousness." - United States Supreme Court -- Davis v, Beason, 1890.The principle that freedom shall not be exploited to perpetrate or sanction immoral acts is derived from the Bible.
"You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature." - Galatians 5:13.And pursuing this end should be the objective of Christian governance.
"The highest end of a state and of its whole order is a moral end - that is, a religious end. [...] It is thus a great moral institution, of high dignity and of mighty power, whose highest end is the development of man's moral nature and the forming of him to virtue in this respect, and ultimately in all the glory of God, whose ordinance it is." - Reverend Erasmus D. McMaster D.D., Inaugural Address as President of Miami University in Ohio, 1845 - 1849, professor of theology at the Theological Seminary in New Albany, Indiana.
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