“No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.” (J. Randolph, editor, Early History of the University of Virginia, 1856, pp. 96-97)
Obviously, under such restrictions the only religious tenets to be taught in public schools would have to be those which were universally accepted by all faiths and completely fundamental in their premises.
Franklin Describes the Five Fundamentals of “All Sound Religions”
Several of the Founders have left us with a description of their basic religious beliefs, and Benjamin Franklin summarized those which he felt were the “fundamental points in all sound religion.” Here is the way he said it:
“Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion....” (Letter to Ezra Stiles, President of Yale University, Sparks, editor, Works of Benjamin Franklin, 1840, Vol. 10, pp. 423-424)
The “Fundamental Points” to be Taught in the Schools
The five points of fundamental religious belief which are to be found in all of the principal religions of the world are those expressed or implied in Franklin’s statement:
1. Recognition and worship of a Creator who made all things.
2. That the Creator has revealed a moral code of behavior for happy living which distinguishes right from wrong.
3. That the Creator holds mankind responsible for the way they treat each other.
4. That all mankind live beyond this life.
5. That in the next life mankind are judged for their conduct in this one.
All five of these tenets run through practically all of the Founders’ writings. These are the beliefs which the Founders sometimes referred to as the “religion of America,” and they felt these fundamentals were so important in providing “good government and the happiness of mankind” that they wanted them taught in the public schools along with morality and knowledge.
Statements of the Founders Concerning these Principles
Samuel Adams said these basic beliefs which constitute “the religion of America is the religion of all mankind.” (W.V. Wells, The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol. 3, p. 23) In other words, these fundamental beliefs belong to all world faiths and could therefore be taught without being offensive to any “sect or denomination” as indicated in the Virginia bill establishing elementary schools.
John Adams called these tenets the “general principles” on which the American civilization had been founded. (Letter to Jefferson cited in Burge, editor, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 13, p. 293)
Thomas Jefferson called these basic beliefs the principles “in which God has united us all.” (Ibid., Vol. 14, p. 198)
From these statements it is obvious how significantly the Founders looked upon the fundamental precepts of religion and morality as the cornerstones of a free government. This gives additional importance to the warning of Washington when he said: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.... Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?” (Littlefield, Basic American Documents, pp. 108-109)
Washington issued this solemn warning because in France, shortly before Washington wrote his Farewell Address (1796), the promoters of atheism and amorality had seized control and turned the French Revolution into a shocking blood-bath of wild excesses and violence. Washington never wanted anything like that to happen in the United States. Therefore he had said: “In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness [religion and morality].” (Ibid.)
Alexis de Tocqueville Discovers the Importance of Religion in America
When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in 1831 he became so impressed with what he saw that he went home and wrote one of the most definitive studies on the American culture and Constitutional system that had been published up to that time. His book was called Democracy in America. Concerning religion in America, de Tocqueville said:
“On my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things.” (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, p. 319)
He described the situation as follows:
“Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions.... I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion — for who can search the human heart? — but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.” (Ibid., p. 316)
European Philosophers Turned Out To Be Wrong
In Europe it had been popular to teach that religion and liberty were inimical to each other. De Tocqueville saw the very opposite happening in America. He wrote:
“The philosophers of the eighteenth century explained in a very simple manner the gradual decay of religious faith. Religious zeal, said they, must necessarily fail the more generally liberty is established and knowledge diffused. Unfortunately the facts by no means accord with their theory. There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and debasement; while in America, one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world, the people fulfill with fervor all the outward duties of religion.” (Ibid., p. 319)
A New Kind of Christianity Emerges in America
De Tocqueville points out that “in France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united.” (Ibid.) He then points out that the early American colonists “brought with them into the New World a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than by styling it a democratic and republican religion. This contributed powerfully to the establishment of a republic and a democracy in public affairs; and from the beginning, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved.” (Ibid., p. 311)
However, he emphasized the fact that this religious under-girding of the political structure was a common denominator of moral teachings in different denominations and not the political pressure of some national church hierarchy. Said he:
“The sects [different denominations] that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God.... All the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same.... There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.” (Ibid., p. 314)
It was astonishing to de Tocqueville that liberty and religion could be combined in such a balanced structure of harmony and good order. He wrote:
“... the revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an ostensible respect for Christian morality and equity, which does not permit them to violate wantonly the laws that oppose their designs.... Thus, while the law permits the Americans to do what they please, religion prevents them from conceiving and forbids them to commit, what is rash or unjust.” (Ibid., p. 316)
De Tocqueville Describes the Role of Religion in the Schools
De Tocqueville found that the schools, especially in New England, incorporated the basic tenets of religion right along with history and political science in order to prepare the student for adult life. He wrote:
“In New England every citizen receives the elementary notions of human knowledge; he is taught, moreover, the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of the Constitution. In the States of Connecticut and Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon.” (Ibid., p. 327)
De Tocqueville Describes the Role of the American Clergy
Alexis de Tocqueville saw a unique quality of cohesive strength emanating from the clergy of the various churches in America. After noting that all the clergy seemed anxious to maintain “separation of church and state,” nevertheless, he observed that collectively they had a great influence on the morals and customs of public life. This indirectly reflected itself in the formulating of laws and ultimately in fixing the moral and political climate of the American commonwealth. As a result, he wrote:
“This led me to examine more attentively than I had hitherto done the station which the American clergy occupy in political society. I learned with surprise that they filled no public appointments; I did not see one of them in the administration, and they are not even represented in the legislative assemblies.” (Ibid., p. 320)
How different this was from Europe where the clergy belonged to a national church, subsidized by the government. He wrote:
“The unbelievers in Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a (political) party much more than as an error in belief; and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the Deity than because they are the allies of government.” (Ibid., p. 325)
In America, he noted, the clergy remain politically separated from the government but nevertheless provide a moral stability among the people which permits the government to prosper. In other words, there is separation of church and state but not separation of church and religion.
The Clergy Fuel the Flame of Freedom, Stress Morality and Alert the Citizenry to Dangerous Trends
The role of the churches to perpetuate the social and political culture of the United States provoked the following comment from de Tocqueville:
“The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.... I have known societies formed by Americans to send out ministers of the Gospel into the new Western states, to found schools and churches there, lest religion should be allowed to die away in those remote settlements, and the rising states be less fitted to enjoy free institutions than the people from whom they came.” (Ibid., p. 317)
De Tocqueville discovered that while the clergy felt it would be demeaning to their profession to become involved in partisan politics, they nevertheless believed implicitly in their duty to keep religious principles and moral values flowing out to the people as the best safeguard for America’s freedom and political security. In one of de Tocqueville’s most frequently quoted passages, he stated:
“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
The Founders’ Campaign for Equality of All Religions
One of the most remarkable attributes of the American Founders was undertaking to do something no other nation had ever successfully achieved —the task of providing legal equality for all religions, both Christian and non-Christian.
Jefferson and Madison were undoubtedly the foremost among the Founders in pushing through the first statutes in Virginia. Jefferson sought to dis-establish the official church of Virginia in 1776 but this effort was not completely successful until ten years later.
Meanwhile, in 1784, Patrick Henry was so enthusiastic about strengthening the whole spectrum of Christian churches that he introduced a bill “Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion.” (This document is reproduced in the supplementary appendix of Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 72.)
It was the intention of this bill to provide that each taxpayer would designate “to what society of Christians” his money should go. The funds collected by this means were to make “provision for a minister or teacher of the Gospel ... or the providing places of divine worship [for that denomination], and to none other use whatever....” (See the supplementary appendix of Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 72, p. 94.)
Madison immediately reacted with his famous Memorial and Remonstrance in which he proclaimed with the greatest possible energy the principle that the State government should not prefer one religion over another. Equality of religions was the desired goal. He wrote:
“Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?... The bill violates that equality which ought to be the basis of every law.” (Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, 1865, 1:163-164)
Why the Founders Wanted the Federal Government Excluded From All Problems Relating to Religion and Churches
The Supreme Court has stated on numerous occasions that to most people freedom of religion is the most precious of all the inalienable rights next to life itself. When the United States was founded there were many Americans who were not enjoying freedom of religion to the fullest possible extent. At least seven of the states had officially established religions or denominations at the time the Constitution was adopted. These included: (Kruse, The Historical Meaning and Judicial Construction of the Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment, 1962, Washburn, L. J., Vol. 2, pp. 65, 94-107.)
Connecticut (Congregational Church)
Delaware (Christian faith)
Maryland (Christian faith)
Massachusetts (Congregational Church)
New Hampshire (Protestant faith)
New Jersey (Protestant faith)
South Carolina (Protestant faith)
Under these circumstances the Founders felt it would have been catastrophic and might have precipitated civil strife if the federal government had tried to establish a national policy on religion or dis-establish the denominations which the States had adopted. Nevertheless, the Founders who were examining this problem were anxious to eventually see complete freedom of all faiths and an equality of all religions, both Christian and non-Christian. How could this be accomplished without stirring up civil strife?
Justice Story Describes the Founders’ Solution
In his famous Commentaries on the Constitution, Justice Story of the Supreme Court pointed out why the Founders as well as the States themselves felt the Federal Government should be absolutely excluded from any authority in the field of settling questions on religion. He states:
“In some of the states, Episcopalians constituted the predominant sect; in others, Presbyterians; in others, Congregationalists; in others, Quakers; and in others again, there was a close numerical rivalry among contending sects. It was impossible that there should not arise perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of ecclesiastical ascendancy, if the national government were left free to create a religious establishment. The only security was in extirpating the power. But this alone would have been an imperfect security, if it had not been followed by a declaration of the right of the free exercise of religion, and a p
rohibition (as we have seen) of all religious tests. Thus the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusive to the State Governments, to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice, and the State Constitutions....” (Article #1879 of the 1833 edition.)
This is why the First Amendment of the Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Jefferson and Madison Emphasize the Intent of the Founders
It is clear from the writings of the Founders as well as the Commentaries of Justice Story that the First Amendment was designed to eliminate forever the interference of the Federal government in any religious matters within the various states. As Madison stated during the Virginia ratifying convention: “There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation.” (The Elliot Debates, Vol. 3, p. 330)
Jefferson took an identical position when he wrote the Kentucky-Virginia Resolutions of 1798: “... it is true as a general principle ... that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution ... all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States, or to the people.” (The Kentucky-Virginia Resolutions and Mr. Madison’s Report of 1799, at 15-82)
The Supreme Court as well as Congress Excluded from Jurisdiction Over Religion
In the Kentucky-Virginia Resolutions, Thomas Jefferson also made it clear that the Federal judicial system was likewise prohibited from intermeddling with religious matters within the States. He wrote:
“... special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the Constitution which expressly declares, the ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an Establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press, insomuch, that whatever violated either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the others, and that libels, falsehoods, and defamation, equally with hereby and false religions, are withheld from the cognizance of Federal tribunals.” (Ibid., p. 2-3 emphasis added)
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