Posted on 07/06/2004 4:59:49 PM PDT by Kerberos
bump
Instead, the article makes a nice attempt at clustering some nice "civil religion" sentiments about Americanism and misses the mark. Sorry for the harsh opinion it fails to lay the foundation for its arguments.
There are many students of history and the Constitution on this site. Law is fairly transitory, it changes with the national mood.
Any student of history knows that the founders who worked out the vast compromises and art of the Constitution know that the authors contemplated nothing like the offhand phrase that Jefferson used in a letter. It is another case of this talented man's curse of mental diarrhea.
Jefferson, off on the worship of the formative years of the French catastrophic experiment had some communication with Madison, but it was mostly one direction: Madison trying to get him to understand the sensibility of the creation.
Jefferson, remembering more fondly the creation in Paris as opposed to the creation in Philadelphia substituted the rationalistic sentiment for the Constitutional virtue actually adopted.
For a contrasting view, read On Two Wings, Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding by M. Novak for some history of the time and subject.
Since the introduction of the religion of Thomas Dewey, Secular Humanism -- an extension of the French Enlightenment excesses, we have been plagued by judicial activism pushing for the adoption of sentiments rather than holding firm to sensible adjudication and forcing the amendment process of our Constitution be utilized if there is the political determination of a self-governing people. Instead, the rationalists want to force by judicial decree what they can't accomplish by legitimate legislation or amendment.
Quite frankly, your comment
So I have posted this article in an effort to give you some resources to improve you understanding of politics and law....indicates an intolerance of diverse opinion on the site and amongst your countrymen and I am saddened you have such an insular view. Many people of little or no formal religious faith still have a sense of that first principle of Conservatism as outlined by Russell Kirk: Belief in an Enduring Moral Order. There is a Right and Wrong though man sometimes sees them dimly. Logical constructs of the latest fashionable thinking doesn't sweep them away.
I have many fine friends that think along the allegedly reasonable lines of the article, but they aren't conservatives. You are welcome to subscribe to this article's incomplete analysis as well.
As we all know, a moral populace will elect, by and large, moral representatives (who are but normal men and women with all the normal flaws) who will institute in legislative law the reflection of Religious Law or Natural Law because, at bottom, that is what secular law has always been. When the practice of religion has been completely stoned from the public square, the next move will be to denigrate its Virtues as reflected in legislation.
Such an experiment will fail, if attempted, with results too sad to contemplate.
There is really only one place to start in an analysis like this article attempts:
The U. S. Constitution and the history surrounding it and following it.
KC, -- feel free to analyze Art VI & the 1st amendment as I've presented above.
Feel free to offer us your rebuttal to the Constitutional points raised in post #42.
Thanks t', I will.
I thought it was interesting that while I was composing 42 you were posting up 43. I serves to show the broad spectrum of views on this forum. Almost like bookends, but we are neither one the ultimate extremes.
I guess the point that I must disagree with is your theory as expressed by:
Thus, it is plain to see the intent of our Framers.You are certainly in good company. Liberal judges of the past century have taken a comment of Jefferson, made for a specific purpose of argument in a letter, as his understanding in total. If that were the case, which we shall never know, then your stand with him and them.
They did indeed want a "separation of organized religion and civil authority".
However, neither you nor he were there. And it is patently obvious that the framers and the populace that adopted the BOR and embraced it understood the term "establish", certainly more so than people of our age.
Our nation was to be the First western nation without an "established" religion. Our nascent nation as a collection of colonies was made up of all sorts of denominations and believers. Non-believers were here as well. A smattering of Jews were also amongst us and part of our strength and heritage, just as all the Christian denominations shared that Jewish heritage as a foundation of their beliefs.
So they knew what they were doing. They understood the terms. But can we look back as you attempt to do and understand the art?
Many conservatives have held, that like much of our founding we were "preserving our rights as Englishmen", as held during our colonial times. And in the colonies, the yoke of established national religion was little felt.
Sure, individual states (colonies) had established religions. Some had them after the BOR with no concern as well.
To me, the reason is plain. The clause was meant to protect religious worship, in all its varieties in the nation as a whole, by outlawing the "establishment" of a national state religion with all its problems.
They even repeated the intent with a clarifying restatement in the concluding corollary phrase.
Thus, with Kirk, I would hold that "this first clause of the First Amendment was meant to shelter religion, not to hamper churches."
As Madison held, the words, terms and logic of the Constitution meant what the people that adopted it held at the time of its adoption. I imagine he felt the same for the BOR since he largely authored it to keep his promise to do so. If that is the case then we should look to those that studied the issue immediately afterwords by their sworn duty.
Justice Story in 1833 held:
The general if not the universal sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state insofar as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship."and so it was universally held for the next one hundred and ten years.
Even Justice Douglas held in '51, "When the state encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, its follows the best of our traditions."
Our national custom is Toleration, not Equivalency. We do not hold with the Enlightenment and Deterministic crowd that all beliefs of whatever form are equally good, true and sufficient.
It is patently obvious that the excesses of denominational "establishment" were understood as fertile ground for tyranny. The excesses of "democracy" were understood as well and that is why it was shunned for a republic.
But just as democratic forms were utilized in representational selection in varied ways, the good of Moral Order was understood as well and the founders knew that they were born into and meant to maintain a nation of generally religious people.
The French, in the following decade, saw that seizing the property of churches was not enough and outlawing them was the best way for the Totalitarian Rationalistic Democracy of the General Will to survive. They chose the plain and simple complete divorce that you imagine you see in our founding documents. I sincerely believe, we did not make that choice.
I have an idea, propose an amendment making clear the choices. I'll go along with what ever passes.
And what is interesting is that the 1st amendment only mentioned Congress - not the local elected dogcatcher.
Answer: Independence Day 1776
:-)
The separation of people and state is of far greater importance and is dissolving each day.
KC, -- feel free to analyze Art VI & the 1st amendment as I've presented above.
44
______________________________________
Micro. -- Feel free to offer us your rebuttal to the Constitutional points raised in post #42.
______________________________________
Thanks for your input fellas.
Too bad you feel unable to address the Constitutional issues.
Maybe next time.
hey, I did, in 49. It must have taken you fifteen minutes to compose your nah, nahna-nah-nah closure to get off to the sack. I head there as well. Perhaps we will continue at a later date. Sleep well and have a great tomorrow.
Church services were held in the House of Representatives chamber until 1868, and were attended by Jefferson and Madison. Services were also held in the Treasury and Supreme Court buildings. The source of this info? The Library of Congress website.
These guys wrote the 1st Amendment, I think their practice speaks volumes about their intent.
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html
THE STATE BECOMES THE CHURCH:
JEFFERSON AND MADISON
It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four.
Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.)
As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a "crowded audience." Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.
Jefferson's actions may seem surprising because his attitude toward the relation between religion and government is usually thought to have been embodied in his recommendation that there exist "a wall of separation between church and state." In that statement, Jefferson was apparently declaring his opposition, as Madison had done in introducing the Bill of Rights, to a "national" religion.
In attending church services on public property, Jefferson and Madison consciously and deliberately were offering symbolic support to religion as a prop for republican government.
It's right there in Article 52:
Article 52 [Religion]What, is that the wrong Constitution? Well, it's the one the Democrats are using to establish party platforms and institute public policy from. Just read through it.
(1) Citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of conscience, that is, the right to profess or not to profess any religion, and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda. Incitement of hostility or hatred on religious grounds is prohibited.
(2) In the USSR, the church is separated from the state, and the school from the church.
We can surmise something about Unknown. The article is an atheist's perspective.
Since "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" doesn't mean what it actually says (according to you), do the other parts of the First Amendment mean what they actually say or do they also have hidden meanings that aren't actually spelled out?
Does "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" also have a hidden meaning that isn't actually spelled out?
Does "Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances" also have a hidden meaning that isn't actually spelled out?
Of course, we could also move on to the other 26 Amendments to the US Constitution and have you explain any hidden meanings within them that aren't actually spelled out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.