When the United States was in its infancy, an impasse in the Continental Congress moved Benjamin Franklin to deliver a famous speech, “asking that the convention begin each day’s session with prayers, at a particularly contentious period, when it appeared that the Convention might break up over its failure to resolve the dispute between the large and small states over representation in the new government,” according to the Library of Congress website.
“Franklin asserted that, ‘The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the Affairs of Men...I also believe without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.’ ”Read more...
Many may not know that the 13 original colonies already had state religions set up as the official religion. North Carolina, incidentally, chose Episcopal, better known as The Church of England.
So what changed? Why did the states dissolve their state sanctioned churches? What do we have when the First Amendment clause states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Here is the background of the First Amendment from the Library of Congress:
“The Constitution was reticent about religion for two reasons: first, many delegates were committed federalists, who believed that the power to legislate on religion, if it existed at all, lay within the domain of the state, not the national, governments; second, the delegates believed that it would be a tactical mistake to introduce such a politically controversial issue as religion into the Constitution. The only ‘religious clause’ in the document—the proscription of religious tests as qualifications for federal office in Article Six...”
“James Madison took the lead in steering such a bill through the First Federal Congress, which convened in the spring of 1789. The Virginia Ratifying Convention and Madison’s constituents, among whom were large numbers of Baptists who wanted freedom of religion secured, expected him to push for a bill of rights. On Sept. 28, 1789, both houses of Congress voted to send twelve amendments to the states. In December 1791, those ratified by the requisite three fourths of the states became the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Religion was addressed in the First Amendment in the following familiar words: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ In notes for his June 8, 1789, speech introducing the Bill of Rights, Madison indicated his opposition to a ‘national’ religion.
What prompted Madison to steer the bill was a letter from a Baptist preacher, John Leland, who had 10 objections to the Constitution and sent it to Col. Thomas Barbour, an opponent of the Constitution that lived in James Madison’s Orange County district. According to the Library of Congress: “Leland’s objections were copied by Capt. Joseph Spencer, one of Madison’s Baptist friends, and sent to Madison so that he could refute the arguments. Leland’s final objection was that the new constitution did not sufficiently secure ‘What is dearest of all—-Religious Liberty.’ His chief worry was ‘if a majority of Congress with the President favour [sic] one system more than another, they may oblige all others to pay to the support of their system as much as they please.’
So the freedom of religion (not from religion) was born, and for more than 150 years of the country’s history, it was not very controversial. Take into account these historical events from WallBuilders.com:
• The only Bible to receive Congressional approval was the Aitken’s Bible, sometimes referred to as “The Bible of the Revolution.” It is one of the rarest books in the world with few copies still in existence today.
• A U.S. Supreme Court reached a conclusion, declaring: “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. . . . When the State encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, it follows the best of our traditions. For it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs. To hold that it may not would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.”
• In the 1803 federal Indian treaty, Thomas Jefferson willingly agreed to provide $300 to “assist the said Kaskaskia tribe in the erection of a church” and to provide “annually for seven years $100 towards the support of a Catholic priest.” He also signed three separate acts setting aside government lands for the sole use of religious groups and setting aside government lands so that Moravian missionaries might be assisted in “promoting Christianity.”
• When Washington D.C. became the national capital in 1800, Congress voted that the Capitol building would also serve as a church building. President Jefferson chose to attend church each Sunday at the Capitol and even provided the service with paid government musicians to assist in its worship. Jefferson also began similar Christian services in his own Executive Branch, both at the Treasury Building and at the War Office.
However, these events would be totally unacceptable in today’s society and be assured that the American Civil Liberties Union would make sure of that.
