Oaths vs. Religious Tests -- KEVIN CRAIG - "Liberty Under God" Beginning in Missouri's 7th Congressional District

In 1787, every person who signed the Constitution believed that an “oath” was inherently, intrinsically religious. Every “oath” is an act of religious worship. The civil Oath of Office is a promise to God, in the presence of God, pledging loyalty to the civil magistrate or constitution, and invoking the judgment of God for failure to perform as promised.

A "religious test" is not the same as an oath of office, but is a promise of fidelity to a particular church, denomination or “ecclesiastical body” (as Madison often phrased it). It is usually enforced by fines or other acts of violence by the State.
The background of the condemnation of any "religious test" in Article VI of the Constitution is to be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Act

The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and Nonconformists [Protestants dissenting against the Church of England].

In the American colonies, Roman Catholics were not permitted to hold public office, but this was not for religious reasons, as much as for political reasons. While Calvinists were Republicans, Catholics were monarchists, and thus perceived as a potential threat to America's Republican form of government. (See "America is a Protestant Nation.") They were not excluded from office because of their views on transubstantiation.
Joseph Story wrote an influential commentary on the U.S. Constitution. President James Madison nominated Story to the Supreme Court of the United States. At the age of thirty-two, Story was the youngest person ever appointed to the Supreme Court.
Article 6, Clause 3: Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§§ 1838-43

§ 1842. And again [quoting Mr. Justice Blackstone]: "As to papists, what has been said of the protestant dissenters would hold equally strong for a general toleration of them; provided their separation was founded only upon difference of opinion in religion, and their principles did not also extend to a subversion of the civil government. If once they could be brought to renounce the supremacy of the pope, they might quietly enjoy their seven sacraments, their purgatory, and auricular confession; their worship of reliques and images; nay even their transubstantiation. But while they acknowledge a foreign power, superior to the sovereignty of the kingdom, they cannot complain, if the laws of that kingdom will not treat them upon the footing of good subjects."

Story goes on to quote Blackstone's reference to The "Test Acts" in England:

In order the better to secure the established church against perils from nonconformists of all denominations, infidels, Turks, Jews, heretics, papists, and sectaries, there are, however, two bulwarks erected, called the corporation and test-acts. By the former of which [Corporation Act], no person can be legally elected to any office relating to the government of any city or corporation, unless, within a twelvemonth before, he has received the sacrament of the Lord's supper according to the rights of the church of England; and he is also enjoined to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, at the same time, that he takes the oath of office; or, in default of either of these requisites, such election shall be void. The other, called the test-act, directs all officers, civil and military, to take the oaths, and make the declaration against transubstantiation, in any of the king's courts at Westminster, or at the quarter sessions, within six calendar months after their admission; and also within the same time to receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper, according to the usage of the church of England, in some public church immediately after divine service and sermon; and to deliver into court a certificate thereof signed by the minister and church-warden, and also to prove the same by two credible witnesses, upon forfeiture of 500l, and disability to hold the said office. And of much the same nature with these is the statute 7 Jac. I. c. 2., which permits no persons to be naturalized, or restored in blood, but such as undergo a like test; which test, having been removed in 1753, in favour of the Jews, was the next session of parliament restored again with some precipitation."

Story concludes:

It is easy to foresee, that without some prohibition of religious tests, a successful sect, in our country, might, by once possessing [civil] power, pass test-laws, which would secure to themselves a monopoly of all the offices of trust and profit, under the national government.
A "Religious Test" was thus a sectarian or denominational Christian test. This can be seen in the ratifying debates.
Every oath is religious, and an act of worship, but not every oath is a "Religious Test." The U.S. Constitution does not prohibit religious oaths. Atheists should not be coerced to participate in any religious worship, but they should still be barred from exercising the machinery of coercion (public office) under Article VI. Only those who can faithfully take a religious oath should be permitted to hold public office.

More on "sectarianism"

I know of no evidence that the option to "affirm" (rather than "swear") was designed for atheists, while there is abundant evidence that it was designed for religious folks with religious scruples against taking oaths, e.g., Quakers and Mennonites. Atheists were not trusted with the reigns of power as "ministers of God."

Pleadings Before the California Supreme Court
APPENDIX C

"Religion" in the Constitution and in Torcaso v. Watkins

Trinitarian oaths existed in this country both before and after the Constitution was ratified. It is true that over the two centuries since the Constitution was ratified, a number of states had altered their oaths of office to reflect a "lowest common denominator" of Christianity,[1] or secularized them, though never entirely removing the religious character of the oath. Christian oaths existed in many states until the Supreme Court struck them down as "unconstitutional." But this did not occur until 1961.[2] Why Oaths of office requiring belief in Christianity could persist for 170 years in the face of an Article in the Constitution allegedly prohibiting such oaths is a study which will lead us to a remedy for Petitioner's impasse.
Historical Revisionism in Torcaso v. Watkins

Torcaso v. Watkins involved the denial of the issuance of a notary commission to an applicant who refused to declare his belief in the existence of God as required by the Maryland Constitution.[3]
The U.S. Supreme Court noted that "Article VI of the Federal Constitution [provides] that 'no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.'"[4] The Court then declared that
There is, and can be, no dispute about the purpose or effect of the Maryland Declaration of Rights requirement before us -- it sets up a religious test. . . .[5]
The Constitution said not to have one; Maryland had one.[6] One hundred and eighty-five years' worth of Marylandian jurists must surely be humiliated by this embarrassing oversight. How could this egregious transgression of unambiguous Constitutional mandate go so long unnoticed?
The answer is as simple as it is controversial. Maryland's requirement that officers declare their belief in God was never a "religious test" as prohibited by Article VI or the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Article 37 of the Declaration of Rights of the Maryland Constitution is either evidence of this fact, or more evidence of the awkward incompetence of the Maryland Constitutional Convention. It says, in language taken from the Federal Constitution, "[N]o religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God." The Maryland Constitution, according to the Torcaso Court, simultaneously forbids and requires "religious tests." And this "indisputable" contradiction occurs in the space of 35 words within a single article of the constitution's Declaration of Rights.
The Court's perception of a contradiction is actually the Court's misunderstanding of legal history and the use of the word "religion" and "religious test" at the time both constitutions were written.[7] The Torcaso Court would impute an enigmatically contradictory character to both the Maryland Constitution and to many Framers of the Federal Constitution.
For example,[8] James Wilson, who later became a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, joined Thomas Mifflin in signing the U.S. Constitution, including Article VI, yet returned home to Pennsylvania to help draft the state constitution in 1790,[9] which required that each member of the legislature,

before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz, "I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration."[10]

After George Read, Richard Bassett, and John Dickinson signed a Constitution which forbad "religious tests," they likewise returned to their home state and drafted Delaware's constitution,[11] which, without contradicting their work in Philadelphia, required:

Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust . . . shall . . . make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: "I ________, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, Blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scripture of the Old and New Testaments to be given by divine inspiration."

After signing the Federal Constitution, William Blount returned to Tennessee and helped create the 1796 Tennessee Constitution,[12] a document which makes perfect sense to a Christian Theocrat, but is internally self-contradictory by Torcaso standards:

Art. VIII, Sec. II. No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State.
Art. XI, Sec. IV, That no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this state.

Most states had similar requirements, often drafted by those who signed the federal Constitution. Their actions are bafflingly inexplicable by Torcaso standards, standards which have evolved over generations of transition from a Christian Theocracy to a Humanist Theocracy. But when the definition of "religion" held by most in that day is understood, these seemingly contradictory requirements are intelligible. That definition is shaped by the culturally-dominant religion of the day, which was not Secular Humanism, as in our day, but Christianity. Notice the quagmire in which Leo Pfeffer, writing in the Torcaso framework, finds himself:

[T]he standard legal definition of the term "religion" is the one given by the United States Supreme Court in Davis v. Beason:[13] "The term 'religion' has reference to one's views of his relations to his Creator, and to the obligations they impose of reverence for he being and character, and of obedience to his will." This would seem to have been a fairly workable definition for the time when it was formulated (i.e., when religion assumed a belief in a deity[14]); but in the same case the court said that to call the Mormons' advocacy of polygamy "a tenet of religion is to offend the common sense of mankind"; and the same court could not accept as "religion" the belief of the "Thugs of India" in assassination or the belief in "human sacrifices by our ancestors in Britain."[15]

As Torcaso did, and Everson before, Pfeffer turns to Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance[16] in an attempt to shore up a viewpoint which looks as though it is going to lend moral sanction to assassination and human sacrifice:

[But] Madison characterized as an "arrogant pretension" the implication that "the civil magistrate is a competent judge of religious truths." To a substantial extent, the same characterization is appropriate to an implication that the civil magistrate is a competent judge of what constitutes religion.

Madison was clearly influenced by Enlightenment and Masonic influences, but he still spoke of "religion" as "the duty which we owe to our Creator."

It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, who enters into any subordinate Association, must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the general authority; much more must every man who becomes a member of any particular Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign.[17]
This is precisely why Maryland required that before he be admitted to a "subordinate Association" of Civil Society, Torcaso affirm his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. A "religious test" was simply a test of an "acceptable" way of "render[ing] to the Creator such homage" as was due, and the specificity of dispute between, e.g., the Baptists and the Episcopalians, was beyond the scope of the Civil Magistrate. But broadly speaking, Madison recognized the existence of "false Religions" and "nations who continue in darkness,"[18] in stark contrast to the post-World War II Courts which so frequently cite him.

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Founder of Harvard Law School and the foremost of American legal minds, says the interpretation of Constitutional provisions (here, the First Amendment) must be made in this Christian context:

We are not to attribute this 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 farmers 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, if not universal indignation.[19]

Thus a "religious test" or an "establishment of religion" speak of a "denominational test within Christianity," or "an establishment of a particular denomination of Christianity." This definition of "religion" can be seen in the discussions of the Establishment clause of the First Amendment ("no...establishment of religion") during the state conventions to ratify the Constitution. In North Carolina, Gov. Johnston expressed these very representative remarks:

I know of but two or three states where there is the least chance of establishing any particular religion. The people of Massachusetts and Connecticut are mostly Presbyterians. In every other state, the people are divided into a great number of sects. In Rhode island, the tenets of the Baptists, I believe, prevail. In New York, they are divided very much: the most numerous are the Episcopalians and the Baptists. In New Jersey, they are as much divided as we are. In Pennsylvania, if any sect prevails more than others, it is that of the Quakers. In Maryland, the Episcopalians are most numerous, though there are other sects. In Virginia, there are many sects; you all know what their religious sentiments are. So in all the Southern States they differ; as also in New Hampshire. I hope, therefore, that gentlemen will see there is no cause of fear that any one religion shall be exclusively established.[20]

Also speaking to the First Amendment in the same convention, Mr. Iredell:

[Congress] certainly [has] no authority to interfere in the establishment of any religion whatsoever; and I am astonished that any gentleman should conceive they have. . . . Happily no sect here is superior to another. . . . This article is calculated to secure universal religious liberty, by putting all sects on a level.[21]

As Story wrote specifically regarding the purposes of Article VI:

It is easy to foresee, that without some prohibition of religious tests, a successful sect, in our country, might, by once possessing power, pass test-laws, which would secure to themselves a monopoly of all the offices of trust and profit, under the national government.[22]

As late as 1951, authorities still recognized the definition of "religion" articulated in the "Mormon" cases:

Religion . . . . As used in constitution provisions forbidding the "establishment of religion," the term means a particular system of faith and worship recognized and practiced by a particular church, sect, or denomination. Reynolds v. U.S. 98 U.S. 149, 25 L.Ed. 244; Board of Education v. Minor, 23 Ohio St. 241, 13 Am.Rep. 233.[23]
Thus, the "establishment" of a "religion" was the establishment of a particular Christian denomination or sect. Similarly, a "religious" test would be better understood in our day by calling it a denominational test. But these provisions were understood in a context of a Christian civil structure.
This line of analysis is easily applied in Petitioner's case. Petitioner, as an anarchist, opposes State-mandated thought-patterns for anyone, even for holders of "public offices" (which he also opposes).[24] Thus, Petitioner is not requesting a return to test-oaths. But a study of legal history cannot support the proposition that the Constitution prohibits the voluntary taking of a Trinitarian Oath.

Hodge's Warning (1887)

The holding by Torcaso that the Constitution does not allow a state to administer an oath to the God of the Bible cannot be analyzed apart from the historical understanding that the nation's legal system has been shifted from Christian Theocratic foundations to Secular Humanistic foundations. The understanding of the First Amendment and Article VI, cl. 3 as dealing with rivalries between Christian denominations[25] in a context of Christian culture has been replaced with a theory that places Christianity on a par with human sacrifice, all the while denying the inescapable fact that a new theocracy of materialistic hedonism has been established. Princeton professor Archibald Hodge saw the trend in 1887, and sounded this alarm:

The tendency is to hold that [the public school] system must be altogether secular. The atheistic doctrine is gaining currency, even among professed Christians and even among some bewildered Christian ministers, that an education provided by the common government should be entirely emptied of all religious character.[26] The Protestants object to the government schools being used for the purpose of inculcating the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and Romanists object to the use of the Protestant version of the Bible and to the inculcation of the peculiar doctrines of the Protestant churches. The Jews protest against the schools being used to inculcate Christianity in any form, and the atheists and agnostics protest against any teaching that implies the existence and moral government of God. It is capable of exact demonstration that if every party in the State has the right of excluding from the public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing, no matter how small a minority the atheists or the agnostics may be.[27]
. . . I am as sure as I am of Christ's reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.[28]
Since 1961, with the secularizing of oaths, and two years later, with the complete secularizing of schools, we have seen Hodge's "enginery" working overtime, generating the problems Petitioner seeks to help correct.[29] A fundamental injustice would be done if he were not permitted to do so.

NOTES
(1) See the 1887 warning of A.A. Hodge, as quoted by R.J. Rushdoony, "The Lowest Common Denominator," The Messianic Character of American Education, 333-39 (1963)(Reprinted at the conclusion of this Appendix.)
(2) Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 6 L.Ed.2d 982 (1961).
(3) The essence of this provision dates back to 1776. Originally calling for "belief in the Christian religion," it was subsequently (1851) amended to include any Jew who would declare his "belief in a future state of rewards and punishments." Further amendment (1864) eliminated the reference to Jews and simply added after "Christian religion" "or in the existence of God" etc. "[T]he Convention itself was declaring that belief in the existence of God should be a qualification for office, but that no other religious test should be required." Torcaso v. Watkins, 223 Md. 49 at __, 162 A.2d 438 at 441 (1960). [Torcaso, 367 U.S. 488 at 489]
(4) The court went on to say, "Because we are reversing the judgment on other grounds [viz., the First Amendment], we find it unnecessary to consider appellant's contention that this provision applies to state as well as federal offices." Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 at 489n.1, 81 S.Ct. 1680 at n.1.
(5) Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 at 489, 81 S.Ct. 1680 at 1681.
(6) As did at least 8 other states, even as late as 1961. Leonard F. Manning, The Law of Church-State Relations in a Nutshell, St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1981, p. 3.
(7) Both historical usage and legal precedents were either misunderstood or deliberately ignored by those who secularized support oaths and public schools (by removing voluntary prayer and Bible reading). Enlightening is the fact that of the 1961-63 Supreme Court Justices, eight of nine had arrived on the Court with an extended history of political but not judicial experience. Chief Justice Earl Warren had been the Governor of California for ten years prior to his appointment to the Bench; Justice Hugo Black had been a U.S. Senator for ten years preceding his appointment; Justice Felix Frankfurter had been an assistant to the Secretary of Labor and a founding member of the ACLU; Justice Arthur Goldberg [began tenure Oct. 1, 1962] had been the Secretary of Labor and Ambassador to the United Nations; Justice William Douglas was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission prior to his appointment; all the justices except Potter Stewart had similar political backgrounds. Justice Potter Stewart, having been a federal judge for four years prior to his appointment, was the only member of the Court with extended federal Constitutional experience before his appointment; interestingly Justice Stewart was the only Justice who objected to the removal of prayer from public schools on the basis of precedent. He alone acted as a judge; the rest acted as architects of the new Secular Polis. David Barton, The Myth of Separation, Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 1992, p. 148.
(8) The following are from and additional examples can be found in David Barton, An Investigation of the Meaning of Article VI of the Constitution, unpublished monograph, 1993, p. 3. (Available from Specialty Research Associates, P.O. Box 397, Aledo, TX 76008.) See generally, Barton, The Myth of Separation, above note 7.
(9) The American's Guide: The Constitutions of the United States of America, Trenton: Moore and Lake, 1813, pp. 163-64.
(10) Pennsylvania Frame of Government, Sec 10, in The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America, Boston: Norman and Bowen, 1795, p. 81
(11) The Constitutions of All the States According to the Latest Amendments, Lexington: Thomas T. Skillman, 1817, p. 181.
(12) The American's Guide: Comprising the Declaration of Independence; the Articles of Confederation; the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitutions of the Several States Composing the Union, Trenton: Moore and Lake, p. 320 (1838).
(13) 122 U.S. 333 (1890); see also George vs. United States, 196 F.2d 445 (1952). [Pfeffer's note]
(14) An assumption which was altered in the case of Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing TP. where "belief" was accorded the same status as "disbelief" (330 U.S. 1 at 15-16, 67 S.Ct. 504 at 511) a break with the past. This new understanding of "religion" was followed in Torcaso (at 367 U.S. 492-495, 81 S.Ct. 1683-84). [Petitioner's note]
(15) A conclusion which was inescapable for a court in the Anglo-American legal tradition, which presupposed the Truth of Christianity. "Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been part of the common law. . . . The laws and institutions . . . are built on the foundation of reverence for Christianity." Updegraph v. Commonwealth, 11 Serg. & R. 393, 399, 402 (Sup.Ct.Penn., 1824).
(16) Reprinted in its entirety in Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Tp., 330 U.S. 1 at 63-72, 67 S.Ct. 504 at 535-539. A greatly misused but standard source quoted by those attempting to separate Christianity from the State. Madison publicly advocated no such thing.
(17) Memorial and Remonstrance, in ibid., at 330 U.S. 64, 67 S.Ct. 535.
(18) Ibid., at 330 U.S. 70, 67 S.Ct. 538 [§12].
(19) Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1854, pp. 259-61.
(20) Jonathan Elliot, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Washington: Printed for the Editor, 1836, vol. IV, p. 199. Emphasis added.
(21) Ibid., p. 194. Emphasis added.
(22) Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Abridged Boston: Hilliar, Gray & Co., 1833, p. 690.
(23) Black's Law Dictionary, St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1951, p. 1455 ["Religion"].
(24) If Petitioner had to be subjected to the institutionalized violence of "archists" (office-holders), he would prefer that they be tied in some way to the moral absolutes of Christianity and limited thereby.
(25) "Archist" rivalries which in fact led (indirectly) to the legislation which secularized American law. See Hodge, below. Petitioner, unable to support ecclesiastical constitutions as well, has not been a member of a religious denomination for nearly a decade.
(26) At this point it hadn't: the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 mandated that "religion" (i.e., Christianity) be taught in schools; see Appendix D, pp. 56ff.
(27) A.A. Hodge, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, Phila: Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1887, p. 283f. Quoted in R.J. Rushdoony, The Messianic Character of American Education, Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press, 1963, p. 335.
(28) Hodge, p. 280, in Rushdoony, idem.
(29) See generally, David Barton, America: To Pray or not to Pray, Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 1991.

A Conversation on "Sectarianism"

Our government was based on religion and morality. The teaching of piety and virtue was foremost in the minds of the men who wrote our Constitution. John Adams said "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people." The men who wrote the Bill of Rights believed that the purpose of public schools was to teach "religion, morality and knowledge," because religion was "necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind." Read about this law.

The textbooks which were universally used in those days, such as the New England Primer and the McGuffey Readers, were explicitly Christian. After the Constitution was ratified, no one believed that Christianity had to be removed from these and other school texts. Read about these books.

The Bible was an essential part of American education, both before and after the Constitution was written. Even secularists admitted this, at least before the Supreme Court engaged in its famous judicial activism in the early 1960's.

Even Horace Mann, often criticized by the Religious Right, never thought about removing religion -- or even the Bible -- from public schools.

The modern idea of removing religion from public schools is completely contrary to the original intent of the Founding Fathers.

Subject: "Nonsectarian" but still very religious
From: kevin4vft@aol.com (KEVIN4VFT)
Date: 04 Jan 1998 03:24:02 EST

In article <19971231235201.SAA04312@ladder01.news.aol.com>, edarr1776@aol.com (EDarr1776) writes:

> Kevin said: >> Horace Mann's schools were explicitly religious. But they were
> non-sectarian. Christian but non-sectarian. You can't understand the First
> Amendment if you can't make that distinction.<<<

> And you don't understand
> either Horace Mann or the First Amendment if you think that the Constitution
> endorses Christianity, in schools or in any other form. That's just not
> so.

Well don't cite an authority or anything like that. The presence of evidence and stuff like that might distract readers from the argument you're making.

What I know about Horace Mann I learned from a past president of the Columbia Teacher's College, a widely recognized authority on the history of education in America, Lawrence Cremin.

The dominance of the New England Primer in the 1700's and the McGuffey Readers in the 1800's, shows that Education was Christian and Biblical throughout this period. The Constitution and the First Amendment were never understood to prohibit state and local governments from encouraging the teaching of religion in all schools.

Even Horace Mann, severely criticized by many Christians, did not attempt to remove religion from the schools. It was not until the 20th century that religion was stripped from schools, and this was a sociological phenomenon, not a legally-mandated one. The legal "mandate" was not invented until the early 1960's.

In article <19971229081200.DAA11964@ladder01.news.aol.com>, edarr1776@aol.com (EDarr1776) writes:

> I'm saying that your statement that all the states taught religion is
> absolutely untrue. Politely I've given a few examples and asked you to
> document your assertion. That is in lieu of accusing you of a Ninth
> Commandment violation. But then, since you don't hold to organized religion,
> should we expect you to try to hold to the commandments?

> If you do hold to
> the commandments, at least tell us what source has led you astray on the
> teaching of religion in the public schools. It is not done, it has never
> been done on any substantial scale. If you have evidence otherwise, now is
> the time to present it.

Here we go:

-------------------------------------
Butts & Cremin, A History of Education in American Culture, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1953, pp. 272ff.:

"The attempt to build a nonsectarian common school curriculum.
In order for the ideal of a universally available, publicly supported, and publicly controlled common school to be at all workable, the teaching of sectarian religion had to be excluded from the classroom. [KC Note: this does not mean excluding all Christianity, just the denominational distinctives:] In their attempts to accomplish this by teaching the common elements of Christianity and the Bible without comment, however, the reformers encountered violent opposition from conservative religious interests and the forces allied with them. The idea that morality and character -- for many the central purposes of education -- could be included in the curriculum apart from the dogma of a sectarian faith was a difficult one for people who had recently lived under religious establishments to accept. Yet the reformers were able, in the space of a half century, to convince a majority of Americans that the plan was practical.

"The development of the nonsectarian curriculum in Massachusetts well represents the movement throughout the Union. Interestingly enough, while the general law of 1789 had enjoined teacher to exert their best endeavors to communicate piety, justice, and other virtues to children, it nowhere mentioned the teaching of religion. Although the popularity of the New England Primer had begun to wane in favor of newer material, the Bible and the Psalter were in wide use, and the law of 1789 probably represented a more general trend replacing earlier Calvinist teachings with a milder conception of Judeo-Christian ethics and morality. Far from excluding religion, the law merely required the teaching of Christian principles to a Christian community.

"When the law of 1827 greatly strengthened the town school committees, the question of sectarian feeling in the selection of school books received important attention. In order to prevent undue sectarian interest in this matter, the following clause was inserted in the law: "That said committee shall never direct any school books to be purchased or used, in any of the schools under their superintendence, which are calculated to favor any particular sect or tenet." Once again, rather than excluding Christian morality from the schools, this provision obviously hoped to bar only sectarian doctrines and tenets.

"No particular attention was paid to this provision until the establishment of the Board of Education in 1837 and the appointment of Horace Mann, a Unitarian, as its secretary. When Mann and the board vigorously supported the common elements of Christianity conception, the more conservative religious groups in the state accused him of trying to introduce Unitarianism into the schools. [note: in the early 1800's, Unitarianism looked more like contemporary evangelicalism, but was clearly a departure from Puritan Calvinism.] In 1838, in a controversy over school libraries with Frederick A. Packard of the American Sunday School Union [which published public school textbooks, not just "sunday school" texts --kc], and again in 1844 and 1846, in controversies with Reverends Edward A. Newton and Matthew Hale Smith, respectively, Mann and the board were accused of conducting "godless," immoral
schools which bred delinquency and vice. Throughout these continuing struggles, Mann held steadfastly to his position that the common schools were neither irreligious nor nonreligious; they were nonsectarian. If one examines the curriculum of these years, Mann's arguments were entirely borne out in practice, at least to the extent that moral instruction was non-sectarian Protestant in orientation. Very obviously, what his attackers were urging was not that religion, ethics, and morals be taught in the schools, but that their particular sectarian doctrines be taught.

"By the time of the Civil War, Mann's position enjoyed wide acceptance in most places, and universal acceptance in others. A questionnaire sent to twelve leading citizens of Massachusetts in 1851 revealed general concurrence in the conclusion that the New England system of education, while nonsectarian, was far from irreligious. Had America been entirely Protestant, there seems little doubt that well nigh universal acceptance of this policy might have been achieved by 1865. But this was not the case, and after 1840, their ranks strengthened by the mass immigrations of the 1840's and 1850's, the Roman Catholics raised growing objections. Pointing to the fact that the Protestant version of the Bible was read in schools and that this Bible, contrary to Catholic doctrine, was read without comment or interpretation, this group continued to view the public schools as sectarian. In some places temporary compromises were achieved; in others Protestants refused to heed these complaints; and in still others separate Catholic schools systems were established. Suffice it to say that before 1865 the Protestants had no adequate solution to the problem."

If I am able, I will quote Princeton Calvinist A.A. Hodge who railed against the Catholics for fighting Protestants over the King James Bible when they should have joined the Protestants in fighting against the secularists. Again, I blame ecclesiastical denominations for most of today's problems.

But the point is inescapable. The Bible was taught in public schools long after the Constitution was ratified. Even while Horace Mann was active, the New England Primer was still being used:

That Cotton Mather's injunctions were not simply the ravings of a [fanatic] minister is attested by the whole content and spirit of the New England Primer which was the most widely read school book in America for 100 years. The best estimate is made that some 3,000,000 copies were sold from 1700 to 1850.

Butts & Cremin, p.69

No one believed this to be unconstitutional (except a few wiggy and blasphemous prototypes of the ACLU, who were always ruled against in court).

Subject: "Sectarianism"
From: kevin4vft@aol.com (KEVIN4VFT)
Date: 18 Dec 1998 12:41:00 EST

In article <19981217145321.07300.00000641@ng-cf1.aol.com>, edarr1776@aol.com (EDarr1776) writes:

> Kevin has posted nothing that suggests that the "theistic spirit" of the
> Declaration is opposed to religious freedom,

No, the theistic spirit was NOT opposed to freedom for Christians of every sect. I've never said it was.

> nor that it was designed to
> exclude any believer of any faith, nor any disbeliever of any faith.

Name one person (besides Franklin or Jefferson [maybe]) who signed the Declaration who believed that atheists should be allowed to hold office or testify in court -- and quote him to that effect. I will promptly cite the rest of the signers, and will quote the constitutions they drafted which excluded atheists.

> The
> "theistic spirit" was clearly a civil spirit, not a sectarian religious one.

I am against sectarianism, i.e., the preference by law of one Christian sect over another.

Gov Samuel Johnston affirmed this during No.Carolina's ratifying convention:

I know of but two or three states where there is the least chance of establishing any particular religion. The people of Massachusetts and Connecticut are mostly Presbyterians. In every other state, the people are divided into a great number of sects. In Rhode island, the tenets of the Baptists, I believe, prevail. In New York, they are divided very much: the most numerous are the Episcopalians and the Baptists. In New Jersey, they are as much divided as we are. In Pennsylvania, if any sect prevails more than others, it is that of the Quakers. In Maryland, the Episcopalians are most numerous, though there are other sects. In Virginia, there are many sects; you all know what their religious sentiments are. So in all the Southern States they differ; as also in New Hampshire. I hope, therefore, that gentlemen will see there is no cause of fear that any one religion shall be exclusively established.[20]

Notice how the word "religion" is used. It is a mistake to impose our ignorance on the Founders. They used words with a specific meaning, which we may not understand 200 years later. Also speaking to the First Amendment in the same convention, Mr. Iredell:

[Congress] certainly [has] no authority to interfere in the establishment of any religion whatsoever; and I am astonished that any gentleman should conceive they have. . . . Happily no sect here is superior to another. . . .
This article is calculated to secure universal religious liberty, by putting all sects on a level.[21]

As Story wrote specifically regarding the purposes of Article VI:

It is easy to foresee, that without some prohibition of religious tests, a successful sect, in our country, might, by once possessing power, pass test-laws, which would secure to themselves a monopoly of all the offices of trust and profit, under the national government.[22]

(20) Jonathan Elliot, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Washington: Printed for the Editor, 1836, vol. IV, p. 199. Emphasis added.

(21) Ibid., p. 194. Emphasis added.

(22) Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Abridged Boston: Hilliar, Gray & Co., 1833, p. 690.

I join the Founding Fathers in defending a non-sectarian Christocracy.

I have been alternately called an aristocrat and a democrat. I am now neither. I am a Christocrat. I believe all power. . . will always fail of producing order and happiness in the hands of man. He alone Who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern him.
-- Benjamin Rush