The Freedoms: Commentary on the Bill of Rights, The First Amendment: Part One

Recently I was watching television and had the opportunity to watch an episode of "Little House on the Prairie". The episode was about an immigrant family from Russia who had moved to Walnut Grove and purchased a farm within the community. To make a long story short, in the episode the state levied a property tax increase which the community was livid about, and eventually seized the property of this Russian family because the person who sold him the property had not paid the property taxes in seven years. Charles being upset with his own tax situation seeing this happen was angered at the Country for allowing this to happen and informed his family that they would not be celebrating the Centennial celebration of the birth of this Nation. He went to try and console this family in their loss and complain against the Country. In a manner which caused me to become emotional this gentleman reminded Charles Ingals and myself what it means to be a Citizen of this great Country, and reminded him of what he called, "the freedoms", or what we would call the Bill of Rights. He went on to tell Charles and the rest of the towns people that they should consider themselves lucky to be living in what he considered to be the greatest Country on the face of this earth. This episode got me thinking about the Constitution and the greatness of this Country, and you know what, he was right. Each of us should consider ourselves lucky to be living here in this Country. With everything that we complain about, we are still free, and "the freedoms" still are important. I would like to take the next few posts to review each one of these "freedoms" or rights because I believe that we as a Nation have become so blinded by the media's interpretation of them as well as the way we are taught them in school that we don't take the time to read them for ourselves.

As part of our regular weekly family night in our home we've taken the opportunity to study the Constitution with our children during the course of the past year and a half. We started with a video on the Constitutional Convention and from there took the opportunity to discuss with our children what the Constitution is. Since then we've been going over the Amendments to the Constitution the first ten of which are called The Bill of Rights. The first of these guaranteed rights granted us by our Constitution is:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging
the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for
a redress of grievances."

Let's dissect the first Amendment to ensure that we understand its significance to us as a people. First, "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." I don't think there are many who would argue the meaning of this first section, although there are those who would read into it the separation of Church and State which all too often is mistakenly applied to the Constitution. As a matter of fact when I first posted this blog I had a survey in which I asked if the Constitution contained the phrase, "separation of church and state", and I had some people say that it was found within the Constitution. The truth is, that this supposed separation only exists within the halls of the Supreme Court and not the Constitution. If this phrase is not found in the Constitution, where does it come from?

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson in a letter to a group called the
Danbury Baptists, while referencing the First Amendment to the Constitution he
wrote:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

To understand fully what Mr. Jefferson was referring to we need to know the history or events leading up to the writing of this letter. This group was concerned that Connecticut would pass laws prohibiting their free exercise of religion and felt that they were in danger of being disbanded by political bias. In a letter dated October 7, 1801 they wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson who had just been elected President of the United States they presented their concern thus:

"Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty — That Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals — That no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious Opinions - That the legitimate Power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor..."

The quote above, attributed to Thomas Jefferson was his response to them to assuage their fears. The afore mentioned quote of President Jefferson if taken at face value, indicates something far different from that which society today interprets them to mean. As a side note the "wall of separation" and thus "separation of church and state" never appeared in any Supreme Court Ruling until Reynolds v. United States in 1879 (see blog posting : "Marriage and the Constitution", dated October 11, 2008). It is clear in President Jefferson's letter that he is explicitly referencing the ability of the legislature to establish a religion or govern in the affairs of religion and not that there should be no "religiosity" in political realms. I believe this to be in the contrary. Many of our Founding Fathers indicated religion as being the basis upon which this Country was founded and that if religion and God were to ever be removed by the people in their political realms this would be the cause of great troubles which would befall the Nation as a whole. To prove this point let me here provide some quotes from those who would know what our Founding Fathers thought on the subject of religion and our Country.

John Adams said on October 11, 1798, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Samuel Adams on October 4, 1790 stated, "Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity… and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.”

John Quincy Adams during a Fourth of July speech in 1837 said, “Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of July]?" “Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity"?

Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence said on November 4, 1800, " Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."

Finally, lets end with Benjamin Franklin. In 1749 while laying out the plan for education for public schools in Pennsylvania he insisted that schools teach "the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern."

I believe the quotes as sited by those who are traditionally considered among
our Founding Fathers in this Nation are sufficient to prove my point that at
no time during their lives did they ever believe that religious actions or God
should ever be removed from the public interest or arena. I could go on for hours with quote after quote proving this point, but as stated already I believe these should suffice.

In my next post I will continue with my treatise of this subject of the First Amendment and we will discuss the second part of the freedom of speech and of the press.