"The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahomedansim, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus cut off the means of religious persecution (the vice and pest of former ages), and of the subversion of the rights of conscience in matters of religion which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age... Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the first amendment to it... the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State, so far as was not incompatible with the previous rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation." -- Joseph Story, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, sections 1874, 1877.
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." -- John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, October 12, 1816.
No comments:
Post a Comment