I wonder if anybody out there is really interested in what the founding fathers intended when they wrote the First Amendment to the Constitution? Did they really intend, as the Courts have been interpreting for the last sixty-two years, that religion have no role in government, that the government not allow religious practices, or the mention of the Ten Commandments on any local, state, or federal government facility?
That answer is found in the discussions and writings of those who wrote the First Amendment and signed the Constitution. When we read what the founders really intended, it should make every reader, as it did me, absolutely furious at how the U.S. Supreme Court erred in their interpretation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In my eyes, that ruling becomes treasonous because it absolutely ignores the intent of the founders, which violates the oath every federal judge takes to protect and defend the Constitution.
Read for examples these quotes as highlighted in David Barton's Book "Original Intent-The Courts, The Constitution, and Religion", as they commented on how future generations should interpret the Constitution:
To avoid the “injurious mistakes” which may arise from misinterpreting the First Amendment, one need simply establish the original intent of that Amendment. How can this be accomplished? As President Thomas Jefferson admonished Supreme Court Justice William Johnson:
“On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
James Madison also declared:
I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful, exercise of its powers. . . . What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense.”
Justice James Wilson similarly explained:
“The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it.”
So, what was the intention of the writers of the First Amendment? Shown below are some of the notes from the committee at the Constitutional Convention where the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution that were passed).
Look at some of the proposed wordings of the First Amendment:
George Mason (a member of the Constitutional Convention and “The Father of the Bill of Rights”) proposed:
“All men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others.”
James Madison proposed:
“The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established.”
In the official record of the committee discussing the First Amendment:
“AUGUST 15, 1789. Mr. [Peter] Sylvester [of New York] had some concerns and doubts. . . . He feared it [the First Amendment] might be thought to have a tendency to abolish religion altogether. . . . Mr. [Elbridge] Gerry [of Massachusetts] said it would read better if it was that “no religious doctrine shall be established by law.” . . . Mr. [ James] Madison [of Virginia] said he apprehended the meaning of the words to be, that “Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law.” . . . [T]he State[s]. . . seemed to entertain an opinion that under the clause of the Constitution . . . it enabled them [Congress] to make laws of such a nature as might. . . establish a national religion; to prevent these effects he presumed the amendment was intended. . . . Mr. Madison thought if the word “national” was inserted before religion, it would satisfy the minds of honorable gentlemen. . . . He thought if the word “national” was introduced, it would point the amendment directly to the object it was intended to prevent. “
Even the casual reader can plainly see that the concern of the founding fathers was that the federal government would establish a national religion, giving preference to one sect of the Christian religion over the others that were present in the colonies at that time. In none of those discussions does it even suggest, as the more modern interpretations of that Amendment would have us believe, that the founders intended for religion to be kept out of government. And to try and derive from the discussions that the mere presence of a plaque or poster of the Ten Commandments creates a national religion is ludicrous, if not criminal. Any doubts, read what the 1853 – 1854 House and Senate Judiciary Committee report reads regarding a definition of the establishment of religion:
“HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: What is an establishment of religion? It must have a creed defining what a man must believe; it must have rites and ordinances which believers must observe; it must have ministers of defined qualifications to teach the doctrines and administer the rites; it must have tests for the submissive and penalties for the nonconformist. There never was an established religion without all these. . . . Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect [denomination]. Any attempt to level and discard all religion would have been viewed with universal indignation. . . . It [religion] must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests. . . . In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity; that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions. That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: The clause speaks of “an establishment of religion.” What is meant by that expression? It referred, without doubt, to that establishment which existed in the mother- country. . . . [which was an] endowment, at the public expense, in exclusion of or in preference to any other, by giving to its members exclusive political rights, and by compelling the attendance of those who rejected its communion upon its worship or religious observances. These three particulars constituted that union of church and state of which our ancestors were so justly jealous, and against which they so wisely and carefully provided. . . . They [the Founders] intended, by this Amendment, to prohibit “an establishment of religion” such as the English Church presented, or any thing like it. But they had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people . . . they did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy.”
No ambiguity in those writings. And even though the U.S. Supreme Court that established the Separation clause as now interpreted had at its disposal the same writings as shown above for use in making its legendary ruling (Everson-vs-School Board, 1947), they either were too ignorant to find the writing, or maliciously chose to ignore them as they imposed a now sixty year war against religion in the United States by their erroneous ruling on America.
Look at what Justice James Story, called the Father of American Jurisprudence, and a justice of the 1st Supreme Court said about religion and the government: "We are not to attribute this [First Amendment] prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity (which none could hold in more reverence, than the framers of the Constitution). . . . Probably, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the Amendment to it now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State. . . . 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 [disapproval] if not universal indignation [anger]. (emphasis added)"
Look what some of the other founders of our nation said about the relationship between government and religion:
Samuel Adams: As piety, religion and morality have a happy influence on the minds of men, in their public as well as private transactions, you will not think it unseasonable, although I have frequently done it, to bring
to your remembrance the great importance of encouraging our University, town schools, and other seminaries of education, that our children and youth while they are engaged in the pursuit of useful science, may have their minds impressed with a strong sense of the duties they owe to their God."
William Samuel Johnson (signer of the Constitution): You have . . . received a public education, the purpose whereof hath been to qualify you the better to serve your Creator and your country. . . . Your first great duties, you are sensible, are those you owe to Heaven, to your Creator and redeemer. Let these be ever present to your minds, and exemplified in your lives and conduct."
George Washington (1st President of the United States: "[R]eason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. . . . Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge."
Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice and the Father of American Jurisprudence: "Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as Divine revelation in the college [school]—its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained and its glorious principles of morality inculcated? . . .Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?"
Clearly, the Christian faith in America has been viciously attacked and undermined by the ACLU and other anti-Christian organizations since that infamous ruling. The liberal media, the federal courts, and the liberal congress are in an all-out attack to confine the Christian religion practice inside the halls of religious buildings, and to banish it from the public view and government grounds. They cannot stand in the face of Christian principles and defend their demonic practices of condoning and even encouraging sexual immorality, homosexual behavior, abortion, and the destruction of States' Rights such as been imposed on American society for the last sixty years.
The insidious and reprehensible practices of all three branches of the federal government are an all-out attempt to destroy the very Bill of Rights as was written and interpreted by the founding fathers for the first one hundred fifty years of our nation's existence. Their behavior and practices are no less a threat to the survival of the nation our founding fathers existed as was fascism under Hitler and Communism under the Soviet Union and Communist China. The reversal of this trend is no less necessary to the enduring security of our inalienable rights as Americans as was the defeat of the Nazis in Germany, the defeat of the Japanese in World War II, and the destruction of Communism and Socialism as was present in the Soviet Union.
I just pray most Americans will have the scales removed from their eyes so they can see the insidious behavior of our government, both democrats and republicans in all three branches, and then vote to kick them all out of office before it is too late, or any more damage can be done to the security and perseverance of the future generations of Americans that must dig us out of this hole we have allowed ourselves to be put in.
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