100 Dollars to....

[JoeChalupa]

I like the separation of Church and State.

[Darrin]

Man, I hate this debate. It's there; get over it. Why you need God and Coutry right next to each other is beyond. I don't expect the Federal Government to endorse a sports league or participate in one just because I find it entertaining.

My point is: Why is this issue so talked about? Who cares? I am a Catholic, I know my religion, I know when I break its laws, and I know when I break the laws of the United States Government. As long as the Gov't never says I have to break the laws of my religion to obey the laws of the Gov't, I'm okay.

Establishment means recognizing one type of religion. Read the Hebrew, Catholic, and Protestant Ten Commandments sometime. We can't agree on what God scribbled on the stone tablets and gave to Moses. By posting one and not the other, it's an endorsement of religion.

I'm just as dead-set against this case, if it's fairly represented. If the man said Yaweh, or Jesus, or started talking about Christianity, I can understand it. If he simply said god where it's creator, then he shouldn't be suspended.

[Darrin]

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,

The right of the people to keep and bear arms,

shall not be infringed."

[Sec24Row7]

Find were it says you can have a gun. Its not there either. The supreme court however has determined what is and is not cons utional. Try knowing something about the way our system of government works.

Eh?

Did I miss something?

[Sec24Row7]

Yeah so?... it says..." because a well regulated militia is needed for a free state"...

"The people have the right to own arms".

It gives a reason why...

Then states the right to bear arms.

Not hard to understand.

[Darrin]

Yeah so?... it says..." because a well regulated militia is needed for a free state"...

"The people have the right to own arms".

It gives a reason why...

Then states the right to bear arms.

Not hard to understand.

Yes, it does. But wouldn't you agree the amendment is more about securing a national defense - from external and/or internal forces - than securing an individual right to own a semi-automatic firearm?

When the rest of the amendments are issued, for instance the right to peacefully assemble, if context is given, it shapes our at udes about the intentions of the framers, with exception to the 2nd amendment.

[FredFlash]

The person who can find "Separation of Church and State" in our Cons ution.

It's in the fact that authority over religion was not enumerated among the powers delegated to the central government.

-James Madison

FoxNews last night reported a story of a teacher in (where else but) California who was suspended for using the Declaration of Independence because it mentioned "God" (actually, I think it says "Creator". The principal said he was "forcing his religious beliefs (paraphrased)" on the students....

They lie a lot.

[FredFlash]

Why don't you read this and understand Judge Black misinterpreted Jeffersons writings. You say interpret the law. It just takes one wrong ruling and future Judges use his ruling and the snowball starts.

What exact sentence in Thomas Jefferson's letter was misinterpreted, and where exactly in Black's opinion will one find that misinterpretation?

FVF

[FredFlash]

Thanks for the lecture. Have any idea how, where and when the debate came into the public realm?

Why don't you read this and understand Judge Black misinterpreted Jeffersons writings. You say interpret the law. It just takes one wrong ruling and future Judges use his ruling and the snowball starts.

http://www.wallbuilders.com/resource...p?ResourceID=9

The Separation of Church and State

by David Barton

In 1947, in the case Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court declared, “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” The “separation of church and state” phrase which they invoked, and which has today become so familiar, was taken from an exchange of letters between President Thomas Jefferson and the Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, shortly after Jefferson became President.

The Everson Court of 1947 did not take the phrase from a Thomas Jefferson letter. It took in from the U. S. Supreme Court's 1878 opinion in Reynolds V. U. S.

REYNOLDS v. UNITED STATES.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

98 U.S. 145

OCTOBER, 1878, Term

The word "religion" is not defined in the Cons ution. We must go elsewhere, therefore, to ascertain its meaning, and nowhere more appropriately, we think, than to the history of the times in the midst of which the provision was adopted. The precise point of the inquiry is, what is the religious freedom which has been guaranteed....

Before the adoption of the Cons ution, attempts were made in some of the colonies and States to legislate not only in respect to the establishment of religion, but in respect to its doctrines and precepts as well. The people were taxed, against their will, for the support of religion, and sometimes for the support of particular sects to whose tenets they could not and did not subscribe. Punishments were prescribed for a failure to attend upon public worship, and sometimes for entertaining heretical opinions.

This brought out a determined opposition. Amongst others, Mr. Madison prepared a "Memorial and Remonstrance," which was widely circulated and signed, and in which he demonstrated "that religion, or the duty we owe the Creator," was not within the cognizance of civil government.

At the next session the proposed bill was not only defeated, but another, "for establishing religious freedom," drafted by Mr. Jefferson, was passed.
In the preamble of this act religious freedom is defined; and after a recital "that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty," it is declared "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."
In these two sentences is found the true distinetion between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State.....

At the first session of the first Congress the amendment now under consideration was proposed with others by Mr. Madison. It met the views of the advocates of religious freedom, and was adopted. Mr. Jefferson afterwards, in reply to an address to him by a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, took occasion to say: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, -- I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State." Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...ynoldsvus.html

[Phenomanul]

The Everson Court of 1947 did not take the phrase from a Thomas Jefferson letter. It took in from the U. S. Supreme Court's 1878 opinion in Reynolds V. U. S.

REYNOLDS v. UNITED STATES.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

98 U.S. 145

OCTOBER, 1878, Term

The word "religion" is not defined in the Cons ution. We must go elsewhere, therefore, to ascertain its meaning, and nowhere more appropriately, we think, than to the history of the times in the midst of which the provision was adopted. The precise point of the inquiry is, what is the religious freedom which has been guaranteed....

Before the adoption of the Cons ution, attempts were made in some of the colonies and States to legislate not only in respect to the establishment of religion, but in respect to its doctrines and precepts as well. The people were taxed, against their will, for the support of religion, and sometimes for the support of particular sects to whose tenets they could not and did not subscribe. Punishments were prescribed for a failure to attend upon public worship, and sometimes for entertaining heretical opinions.

This brought out a determined opposition. Amongst others, Mr. Madison prepared a "Memorial and Remonstrance," which was widely circulated and signed, and in which he demonstrated "that religion, or the duty we owe the Creator," was not within the cognizance of civil government.

At the next session the proposed bill was not only defeated, but another, "for establishing religious freedom," drafted by Mr. Jefferson, was passed.
In the preamble of this act religious freedom is defined; and after a recital "that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty," it is declared "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."
In these two sentences is found the true distinetion between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State.....

At the first session of the first Congress the amendment now under consideration was proposed with others by Mr. Madison. It met the views of the advocates of religious freedom, and was adopted. Mr. Jefferson afterwards, in reply to an address to him by a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, took occasion to say: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, -- I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State." Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...ynoldsvus.html

which took it from Jefferson's letter...

[FredFlash]

which took it from Jefferson's letter...

Correct. Why do you suppose David Barton did not want you to know that the Supreme Court in 1878 adopted James Madison's view of the First Amendment and attached Jefferson's phrase to it?

The election of Jefferson-America’s first Anti-Federalist President-elated many Baptists since that denomination, by-and-large, was also strongly Anti-Federalist. This political disposition of the Baptists was understandable, for from the early settlement of Rhode Island in the 1630s to the time of the federal Cons ution in the 1780s, the Baptists had often found themselves suffering from the centralization of power.

Thomas Jefferson, in 1800, was elected President as a Republican-Democrat. He had previously been a Federalist. http://www.polytechnic.org/faculty/gfeldmeth/pres.html

In 1801, the Baptists in Connecticut were "suffering" from the Connecticut Certificate Law of 1791. That is why they wrote the President as follows referring to the Certificate Law as "degrading acknowledgements":

Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty--that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals--that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions--that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbors; But, sir, our cons ution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter together with the law made coincident therewith, were adopted as the basis of our government, at the time of our revolution; and such had been our laws and usages, and such still are; that religion is considered as the first object of legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of
the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/baptist.htm

John Leland described the Certificate Law of 1791 as follows:

At present, there are in the state about one hundred and sixty-eight Presbyterial, Congregational and Consociated preachers; thirty-five Baptist, twenty Episcopalians, ten separate Congregationals, and a few other denominations. The first are the standing order of Connecticut; to whom all others have to pay obeisance. Societies of the standing order are formed by law.... Their choice of ministers is by major vote; and what the society agree to give him annually, is levied upon all within the limits of the society-bounds; except they bring a certificate to the clerk of the society, that they attend worship elsewhere, and contribute to the satisfaction of the society where they attend. The money being levied on the people, is distrainable [enforceable] by law;....

It is not my intention to give a detail of all the tumults, oppression, fines and imprisonments, that have heretofore been occasioned by this law religion [italics added].... Let it suffice ...to say, that it is not possible,... to establish religion by human laws, without perverting the design of civil law and oppressing the people.

The certificate that a dissenter produces to the society clerk, must be signed by some officer of the dissenting church, and such church must be Christian; for heathens, deists, and Jews, are not indulged in the certificate law; all of them, as well as Turks, must therefore be taxed for the standing order, although they never go among them, or know where the meeting-house is.

This certificate law is founded on this principle, "that it is the duty of all persons to support the gospel and the worship of God." ...Is it the duty of a deist to support that which he believes to be a cheat and imposition? Is it the duty of a Jew to support the religion of Jesus Christ, when he really believes that he was an impostor? Must the Papists be forced to pay men for preaching down the supremacy of the pope,...? Must a Turk maintain a religion, opposed to the Alkoran ...? I now call for an instance where Jesus Christ, the author of his religion, or the apostles, who were divinely inspired, ever gave orders to, or intimated, that the civil powers on earth, ought to force people to observe the rules and doctrine of the gospel.

Mahomet called in the use of the law and sword, to convert people to his religion; but Jesus did not--does not.

...so there are many things that Jesus and the apostles taught, that men ought to obey, which yet the civil law has no concern in....
The charter of Charles II., is supposed to be the basis of government in Connecticut; and I request any gentleman to point out a single clause in that charter, which authorized the legislature to make any religious laws [italics added], establish any religion, or force people to build meeting-houses or pay preachers....

The certificate law supposes, first, that the legislature have power to establish a religion; this is false. Second, that they have authority to grant indulgence to non-conformists; this is also false, for a religious liberty is a right and not a favor. Third, that the legitimate power of government extends to force people to part with their money for religious purposes; this cannot be proved from the New Testament....

Although it is no abridgement of religious liberty for congregations to pay their preachers by legal force, in the manner prescribed above, yet it is anti Christian; such a church cannot be a church of Christ,...[pp.186-189]. Source of Information: The Writings of [Baptist] John Leland, ed. L.F. Greene (New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, reprint edition, 1969).
http://www.sunnetworks.net/~ggarman/danbury.html

Consequently, now having a President who not only had championed the rights of Baptists in Virginia but who also had advocated clear limits on the centralization of government powers, the Danbury Baptists wrote Jefferson a letter of praise on October 7, 1801, telling him:

Among the many millions in America and Europe who rejoice in your election to office, we embrace the first opportunity . . . to express our great satisfaction in your appointment to the Chief Magistracy in the United States. . . . [W]e have reason to believe that America’s God has raised you up to fill the Chair of State out of that goodwill which He bears to the millions which you preside over. May God strengthen you for the arduous task which providence and the voice of the people have called you. . . . And may the Lord preserve you safe from every evil and bring you at last to his Heavenly Kingdom through Jesus Christ our Glorious Mediator.1

You butchered the out of that quotation, but there is still nothing in it about "clear limits on the centralization of government powers."

However, in that same letter of congratulations, the Baptists also expressed to Jefferson their grave concern over the entire concept of the First Amendment, including of its guarantee for “the free exercise of religion”:

Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our cons ution of government is not specific. . . . [T]herefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights. 2

Where in that chopped up crap of a quotation is there anything about the First Amendment or the free exercise of religion?

Why did you censor out the part that read, "Our ancient charter together with the law made coincident therewith, were adopted as the basis of our government, at the time of our revolution; and such had been our laws and usages, and such still are; that religion is considered as the first object of legislation...?"

In short, the inclusion of protection for the “free exercise of religion” in the cons ution suggested to the Danbury Baptists that the right of religious expression was government-given (thus alienable) rather than God-given (hence inalienable), and that therefore the government might someday attempt to regulate religious expression. This was a possibility to which they strenuously objected-unless, as they had explained, someone’s religious practice caused him to “work ill to his neighbor.”

The letter the Baptists wrote did not include anything whatsoever about the “free exercise of religion.”

Jefferson understood their concern; it was also his own. In fact, he made numerous declarations about the cons utional inability of the federal government to regulate, restrict, or interfere with religious expression.

At least you got that part right.

Thomas Jefferson had no intention of allowing the government to limit, restrict, regulate, or interfere with public religious practices. He believed, along with the other Founders, that the First Amendment had been enacted only to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination-a fact he made clear in a letter to fellow-signer of the Declaration of Independence Benjamin Rush:

[T]he clause of the Cons ution which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes and they believe that any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly.

You twisted the devil out of that quotation from the XYZ letter to make it appear that it was "the clause of the Cons ution" that had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States, when it was actually "the successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion" that had "given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity."

The complete quotation is presented below.

The delusion into which the X.Y.Z. plot shewed it possible to push the people; the successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the cons ution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity thro' the U.S.; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians & Congregationalists. Thomas Jefferson's "Eternal Hostility" Letter To Benjamin Rush dated September 23 1800

FVF

[Phenomanul]

^^^ Excellent analysis.

[FredFlash]

^^^ Excellent analysis.

I hope you do not rely upon David Barton for authoritative information regarding the First Amendment and the history of Church and State in America.

FVF

[Phenomanul]

I hope you do not rely upon David Barton for authoritative information regarding the First Amendment and the history of Church and State in America.

FVF

No, I've just come to grips with the fact that our country is too diverse and 'politically correct' for any one faction to control the government... that's a good thing.

I embrace my Christianity and let others embrace their own religion. Besides, no one will willingfully accept a spiritual doctrine if it is shoved down their throats...

The problems this topic creates, however, are far more complicated than can be solved by our law.

[FredFlash]

Thomas Jefferson had no intention of allowing the government to limit, restrict, regulate, or interfere with public religious practices. He believed, along with the other Founders, that the First Amendment had been enacted only to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination.

The claim that Thomas Jefferson held that separation of church and state was intended to do nothing more than prohibit the government from establishing a national religion is hogwash! President Jefferson rejected the notion that the government had "advisory authority" over religiojn and went to the extreme of refusing to issue religious recommendations via executive proclamation to the people. He explained his reasons in an 1808 letter to Samuel Miller.

To Rev. Samuel Miller Washington, Jan. 23, 1808 Sir, -- I have duly received your favor of the 18th and am thankful to you for having written it, because it is more agreeable to prevent than to refuse what I do not think myself authorized to comply with.

I consider the government of the U S. as interdicted by the Cons ution from intermeddling with religious ins utions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise, of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the U.S.

Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority.

But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting & prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the U.S. an authority over religious exercises which the Cons ution has directly precluded them from.

It must be meant too that this recommendation is to carry some authority, and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation the less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed?

I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct it's exercises, it's discipline, or it's doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them.

Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the cons ution has deposited it.

I am aware that the practice of my predecessors may be quoted. But I have ever believed that the example of state executives led to the assumption of that authority by the general government, without due examination, which would have discovered that what might be a right in a state government, was a violation of that right when assumed by another.

Be this as it may, every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, & mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the U S. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his cons uents.

I again express my satisfaction that you have been so good as to give me an opportunity of explaining myself in a private letter, in which I could give my reasons more in detail than might have been done in a public answer: and I pray you to accept the assurances of my high esteem & respect.

The "No Official National Religion" Interpretation Of The Establishment Clause Is Hogwash!

Counterfeit Christians and various other scoundrels wishing to unite church and state have been trying to foist the “No National Church” interpretation of the establishment clause upon the American people since it was formulated by the Devil and issued to Representative Laban Wheaton (Connecticut) twenty-two years after the First Amendment was written. Laban Wheaton was a demonic Federalist who made no secret of his desire for the central government to assume civil authority over the duty that we owe to the Creator. The first phase of his devilish scheme to trespass upon the jurisdiction of Jehova was to expand the two Congressional Chaplainships to impose a government established religion over the ten miles square of the District of Columbia.

Wheaton and Representative Timothy Pitkin (Massachusetts) challenged President James Madison’s 1811 veto of a bill incorporating an Episcopal Church in Alexandria in the District of Columbia. President Madison believed the bill established rules and procedures, that could not be amended by the church, to govern the selection and removal of the minister of the church. Madison claimed it violated the establishment clause.

Wheaton argued that Madison's view of the establishment clause was wrong because Congress had already established two religions “by electing, paying or contracting with their Chaplains.” Wheaton deemed the meaning of the establishment clause to be of very great consequence. [Note 1}

Representative Wheaton complained, on the floor of the House during the debate regarding the veto, that the people of the District of Columbia were never going to have any religion because it had been entirely excluded from the ten square mile area of the District. Wheaton held the twisted view that religion established by the people or by God (instead of the government) was not really religion.

James Madison, according to his later writings, actually agreed with Wheaton that Congress had (improperly) established two religions in 1789 by creating the Congressional Chaplainships. Madison was decades ahead of most American's thinking with regard to religious liberty and perceived evil lurking under the plausible disguise of the Congressional Chaplains. Madison was a genuine Christian and knew that the serpent was very subtle and the wicked one grows his evil up from small beginnings.

Madison realized that setting up an official national religion would require four steps: 1) the selection of a group of Americans to be subjected to the establishment, 2) selection of a religion for them, 3) election of some ministers of that religion and 4) making a law to establish the people's duty to support the ministers. The establishment of the Chaplainships was accomplished by taking all four steps.

To James Madison and many others, the only difference in the two Congressional religions established in 1789 and an official establishment of a national religion, was the number of ministers that had to be supported by the taxpayers and the number of Americans covered by the establishment. Madison feared that every provision short of the strict Christian principle of Separation of Religion and Government would leave crevices through which evil men (like Roy Moore, David Barton and D. James Kennedy) would attempt to introduce their seeds of bigotry to grow into persecution which Madison believed was like a monster, that feeding and thriving on its own venom, gradually swells to a size and strength overwhelming all laws divine and human.

Fortunately James Madison was transformed into Superman when the rights of conscience were attacked. The same House of Representatives that voted 100 to 0 to pass the bill that Madison vetoed, voted 71 to 29 to sustain the Presidents veto. The “No National Church” Interpretation was rejected in favor of the “Total Separation of Religion and Government” interpretation of the President. James Madison was thus installed as the authority on the meaning of the religion clauses.

During the Early Days of the Grand and Glorious Republic it was always James Madison's interpretation of the establishment clause that eventually prevailed in every dispute over its meaning. These early Church State disputes included the following:

Presidential Religious Recommendations

James Madison’s view that government religious recommendations were improper prevailed in 70 of the first 74 years of the young Republic. President Madison himself made the mistake of trying to accommodate Congressional requests for religious proclamations during the War of 1812 while at the same time making it clear that he claimed no civil authority over religion. President Madison claimed that his four proclamations employed a form and language meant to stifle any claim of political right to enjoin religious observances by resting his recommendation expressly on the voluntary compliance of individuals and even by limiting the recommendation to such as wished simultaneous as well as voluntary performance of a religious act on the occasion. [Note 2]

The consequence of Madison's wartime proclamations were malice and bitterness. In 1832 Representative Gulian Verplanck of New York recalled, in a speech on the House floor, that the that the wartime political religious observances under state authority were kept with “too much of the old leaven of malice and bitterness” and the Gospel of the Savior was employed by ministers and politicians “to point political sarcasm and to rekindle partisan rage.”

A lesson was learned from President Madison’s mistake of mixing religion and politics and every President from 1816 to 1860 flatly refused to issue religious proclamations under any cir stances. In 1832, Henry Clay and the Counterfeit Christians in the Senate took advantage of an impending epidemic and schemed to pass a join resolution requesting President Andrew Jackson to issue a prayer and fasting proclamation. Clay's resolution passed in the Senate but it failed in the House, where Gulian Verplanck of New York closed his famous speech by recommending that Congress "leave prayer to be prompted by the devotion of the heart, and not the bidding of the State."

Congressional Prayer

Contrary to the widespread myth, there were no daily opening prayers in the First U S. Congress. If you know of any evidence of morning prayers in the official records of the First Congress, please tell me where it is.

Article III of the Northwestern Ordinance

There was a dispute over whether Article III of the Northwestern Ordinance obligated the government to support religion in the Ohio Territory. The U. S. Congress believed that it did not and several attempts to enact legislation to "give legal effect" to the “support of the gospel” interpretation of Article III never even made it out of committee.

Sunday Mail Delivery

The Sunday Mail dispute raged from 1810 to the development of the telegraph and railroad train systems. The subject of the controversy was an 1810 post office law that required the transportation and opening of the mail on Sundays. There were numerous attempts by the “Christian Party” to convince Congress to repeal the 1810l law, but they all failed. Representative Colonel Johnson of Kentucky, chairman of the House Post Office Committee, issued a famous report in 1830 that adopted James Madison’s view that religion was exempt from the cognizance of the government. One of the many pe ions from citizens supporting the 1810 Post Office law declared that the establishment clause was intended to, “Leave the religion of the people as free as the air they breathe from government influence of any kind.”

Ten Commandment Displays in Federal Courts

The 1789 Judiciary Act did not include a requirement for the display of the Ten Commandments in Federal Courts. I am not convinced that such a suggestion was actually introduced in Congress.

During the Early Years of the Republic (1789 to 1860) there were no disputes over “one Nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, “In God We Trust” on the nations coins or government displays of the Ten Commandments. The Federal Government respected God’s authority over the conscience of men and refrained from using its legislative authority to issue religious advice to the people.

Notes

[Note 1]: The establishment of the Congressional Chaplains was supported by some Congressmen to merely undermine the Separation of Church and State or to convince gullible cons uents that the Congressmen were Christians. The Congressional Chaplains were clearly not established because the Congressmen were pious Christians who wanted to attend religious services conducted by the Chaplains. By all accounts, only a very few Congressmen actually attended the Chaplain’s services.

[Note 2] In 1812, it had been twenty-three years since Congress had requested the President to issue a religious recommendation. This strongly suggests that the First Congress did not believe that government religious recommendations were a wholesome practice except in extraordinary rare cir stances. Congress did not request the proclamations issued by John Adams.

Sources of Information:

Read Laban Wheaton’s argument for the No National Religion interpretation at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage....db&recNum=489

Read the official record of the 71 to 29 vote in 1811 in the House of Representatives in favor of James Madison’s interpretation of the establishment clause at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage....db&recNum=496

Read New York Representative Gulion Verplacnk’s 1832 speech on the subject of Presidential Religious Recommendations at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage....db&recNum=490

Read the 1801 pe ion citizens and inhabitants of Wayne County, in the Northwest Territory praying for the support of the Gospel and for erecting the buildings necessary for the celebration of divine service. http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/ampage?....db&recNum=435

Read about the 1802 announcement of Senator Uriah Tracy of Connecticut that he would ask leave to bring in a bill the nest day to carry into effect the support for schools and religion in the Northwestern Territory. The official records show that Tracy did not attempt to introduce the bill. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage...11.db&recNum=8

Read about the 1802 appointment of a House committee to inquire into the matter of support of religion within the Territory of the United States Northwest of the river Ohio. The committee never reported the question to the floor.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage...069&linkText=1

Read about the Bill reported out of committee (but not passed) in 1828 that would have authorized the use of federal land in the State of Ohio for the support of religion.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage...199&linkText=1