Posted on 10/10/2010 3:47:39 PM PDT by Titus-Maximus
"In defending school choice or God in the Pledge of Allegiance, it is too easy to find oneself on the wrong side of the “wall of separation” between church and state. But as Professor Philip Hamburger reveals in his timely and well-researched tome, Separation of Church and State, few know the secret history of this American doctrine." ,....,
"Hamburger notes that the extent of the connection between anti-Catholicism and the growth of the ideal of separation of church and state has been expunged from the separation myth. But the facts are undeniable—and not without irony. Among various proposed safeguards of religious liberty were loyalty tests and oaths for Catholics, barring them from office or voting, and even a proposed constitutional amendment that would sever the American Catholic Church from Rome. Public monies were denied to Catholic schools from the 1840s onward, although it was granted to the public schools, which taught Protestant doctrine. The difference, the reasoning went, was that public monies could not be used to educate children according to the dictates of the Catholic Church, although it could be used to educate children according to the dictates of the majority of individual Protestant consciences."
"Many nativist and racist organizations naturally saw a way to limit the power of Catholics in promoting separation. The Ku Klux Klan included a promise to uphold separation in its membership oaths, and campaigned heavily against the Catholic Church and for separation. Even the man who finally made separation official federal law, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, was a prominent Klansman."
http://www.amazon.com/Separation-Church-State-Philip-Hamburger/dp/0674013743/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286750193&sr=1-2
Our nation disestablished State Churches in order to avoid the persecution and slaughter experienced by so many dissenters, on this continent, in Europe and the British Isles. This occurred at the hand of Protestant State Churches as well as Catholic State Churches.
The only State with a colonial past as a haven for Catholics was Maryland. The Constitution was ratified by Maryland, I do believe. It seems Revolution-era Catholics didn't buy into this, either.
Good points. The article smells “Fishy”. Ahmm.
I'm over 50 so my memory of 5th/6th grade isn't great, but I was taught that a contributing factor was because of problems with Maryland and the Catholicism there. It was a rather detailed lesson about the conflicts at the time, but I don't remember them any more. I also didn't take the lesson to be anti Catholic at the time as neither the Protestants or Catholics were painted in a very nice light regarding the conflicts.
Early Maryland experienced a great deal of strife and upheaval, wars with Puritans and such. I have several ancestral lines who came to Maryland from Great Britain, landing at St. Mary’s City primarily but also Calvert County, none left in MD, on to Fairfax County, Virginia by 1700 and to NC prior to the Revolution, following the frontier inland, they were tobacco planters. Records are very spotty. Several were orphaned. It must’ve been rough.
You nailed it. The Founding Fathers were very familiar with the awful religious wars in England and the Continent, which were only a few generations before the American Revolution. They recognized that govt. establishment of religion was the real issue. Just as govt. power corrupts everything else, so does it corrupt religion. Thanks to the Fathers, we can choose our religious allegiance without coercion.
Yeah, Maryland started out Catholic but then the Puritans took over and there was some back and forth for a while during the 1600s. But by the early 1700s I think, the Church of England was established there and Catholicism was technically not permitted anymore in Maryland, even though the laws weren’t really strictly applied, so people still remained Catholic in private.
After that point, it was really only Quaker Pennsylvania that allowed Catholicism to be practiced in public, citing the charter of toleration given to William Penn. It was a pretty big scandal at the time, and there was even a court case against the “Popish Chapel” if I remember right. It wasn’t till really after the Revolution that Catholicism could be practiced legally in the other colonies.
Ping for further reading.
It wasn’t always elsewhere, there was a fair amount here. I have an ancestor who was forced to flee Goochland County, Virginia, in fear for his life and that of his family, because he was Baptist and the State Church was Anglican.
He fled to NC, which was by comparison almost ungoverned and ungovernable in the wild backcountry of the era. That tells me something, when enduring indian raids in a remote, howling wilderness was preferable to being subjected to a State Church.
Cease with the partisan jockeying. State Churches were disestablished to remove governmental authority over religious convictions. All of them. This provided freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, phrases connoting basic rights that would be more familiar to Anglican Virginians of the Revolutionary era than to any Congregationalist, Calvinist, Catholic or what have you from elsewhere. It was, after all, penned into their State Constitution under the Articles Of Confederation by Founder George Mason.
Yes, in those days people took religion very seriously, and the connection between state and religion (”establishment”) had not been broken. I have recently been reading about the history of New England, which was basically founded as a theocratic society by the Puritans. Dissidents like Quakers were persecuted and even killed. The wording of the First Amendment was designed to prevent disestablishment of religion in states where it existed (like MA), while forbidding establishment of a single church nationwide.
Separation of Church and State, as we know it today started under FDR and his supreme court. See the book, “Behind the Lodge Door” for more info.
Originally it was all about not establishing a state religion, NOT separation of God and State, as it is today.
That was the New England perception of the so-called “Establishment Clause,” with several State Churches enduring into the early nineteenth century.
Compare and contrast to others, particularly in the south, where the State Church was disestablished immediately or very nearly so.
You can certainly tell where the religious dissenters had settled (or were driven, as the case may be).
No disagreement here.
The southern colonies insisted upon the religious freedom clause to ensure that the New England Congregationalists did not impose a national religion. The Federalist Papers 2, 10 and 84 document this debate. The resulting establishment clause only applied to the federal government, but left the states free to establish or retain their own state religions. Some states continued to have a state religion for a considerable period of time.
Massachusetts remained officially Congregationalist until 1780, Virginia Church of England until 1786, Georgia Church of England until 1789, New Hampshire Congregationalist until 1790, and remained Connecticut officially Congregationalist until 1818.
Maryland may have started as a safe haven for Catholics.. It didn’t stay that way.
I’m aware, thanks. The transition from one to the other was, shall we say, bumpy. The pendulum swings of opinion and law mirrored that of England which was in equal disarray, culminating in the English Civil War.
See reply #13.
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We are on the same page. My point was that Catholicism played almost no role in the debate at the time.
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