What was the wall made of?

[Flanders]

Jerry A. Kane over at Canada Free Press does a good job of disputing the existence of a wall separating Church & State:

If the Framers intended the Establishment Clause to erect a “wall of separation” between the Judeo/Christian God and nature’s God and government, they would have included the “separation of church and state” notion in the First Amendment or would have at least introduced and discussed it at the first Constitutional Convention. But not one of the Framers ever mentioned it. None of the Congressional Records of the discussions and debates of the 90 Founding Fathers who framed the First Amendment contains the phrase “separation of church and state.” The phrase is not found in the Constitution, the First Amendment, or in any of the notes from the Convention.

The idea of a “wall of separation” between church and state surfaced in 1947 when the Warren Court lifted the “wall of separation” phrase from a letter written by President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut. Jefferson used “wall” as a metaphor to address the Baptists’ concerns about religious freedom, and to clarify for them that the federal government was restricted from interfering with religious practices. Jefferson’s letter explained that the First Amendment put restrictions only on the government, not on the people.

The truth is the current “separation” doctrine is a relatively recent concept and not a long-held constitutional principle. The Warren Court took Jefferson’s “wall of separation” phrase out of context and reinterpreted the First Amendment to restrict people instead of government. And now some 65 years later, 69 percent of the American people believe the First Amendment actually contains the “separation of church and state” phrase.

The ACLU et al., work tirelessly to erect a judicial wall separating Church & State. The argument between separation, and no separation, will never be settled as long as it remains a philosophical argument. Philosophical arguments end up advocating opposing political theories. Socialist can argue political theory until the end of time because it is pure misdirection. The true debate, the one Socialists avoid like the plague, should revolve around funding.

There is no doubt the Founders intended an impenetrable wall separating Church from the public purse. In addition to the Founding Fathers everybody in Colonial America wanted freedom of religion, but nobody wanted public funds going to somebody else’s religion. The question then becomes: What was the wall separating Church & State made of in colonial times? The answer is obvious: A closed public purse. The conflict began when Socialists insisted there is a wall separating Church & State, but it is NOT the wall the founders erected. In effect, Socialists created a fictitious wall then attacked it.

Religious monuments on public lands, school prayer, etc., is the stuff socialism’s fictitious wall is made of, while the idea of giving public funds to a religion’s priesthood and their flock was so alien to the Founders it never occurred to them that more than a precise prohibition was needed in their day, or at any time in the future:

The First Amendment begins with the words, “Congress [i.e. the federal government] shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” The Framers didn’t want the federal government establishing a “state church” (as England and some European Countries had at the time) or interfering with the free exercise of religion. The First Amendment kept the federal government from interfering with the people’s right to establish their own churches and denominations and worship freely.

It can be argued that the first 16 words in the First Amendment are the most powerful political words ever strung together. Those words shout “Free Choice” the eternal enemy of totalitarian government. The all-encompassing concept behind those words frightens weak minds to this day. Conversely, the concept is so powerful Socialists see it as the one obstacle standing in the way of their theocracy.

If the First Amendment means anything it means public funds could not be used to establish, or prohibit, a religion. Yet how many times have you heard a constitutional expert examine the concept from a funding perspective?

Note that none of the Founding Fathers would be considered a constitutional expert in an academy where Hussein and countless liberals are the experts. Try to imagine Jefferson or Madison arguing a case before judges like Ruth Ginsburg who would abandon the Constitution altogether. Nevertheless, Jefferson’s reasoning on religion and the public purse is faultless:

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. ... Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”

First Amendment was intended to protect religion from an intrusive government, and not the government from religion
America’s Courts Have Been Violating the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause for Three Decades
Jerry A. Kane Saturday, May 12, 2012

America’s Courts Have Been Violating the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause for Three Decades

Injurious meant physical injury and taking your money by stealth or force. I’m pretty sure Jefferson did not consider speech injurious. His views are fairly obvious from this:

“. . . it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God.”

Jefferson and the other Founders would have been appalled at the thought of government-imposed politically correct speech.

Finally, the XVI Amendment breached the public purse separating Church & State. That gave Socialists everything they needed to erect their judicial wall. Since then Socialists have poured through the opening attacking the First Amendment from two directions; 1) tax dollars can be used to establish the Socialist religion; 2) tax dollars can be used to prohibit the free exercise of every religion except socialism.

Most especially, Socialists use tax dollars to prohibit Christianity under the guise of separating Church & State. One method is to turn the other religions against Christians. You can see it in the way Islam is protected and praised as the religion of peace while Christianity is blamed for all of the evils in the world. Socialists do not stop there. They cite the First Amendment to protect Shariah law in the courts with nary a mention of a wall separating Church & State.

Here’s the worst of it:

Socialists get away with tax dollar tithing because there are not enough legislators willing to define legislative and judicially-imposed behavior as tenets of a religion. When Socialists dictate how everyone must behave, how they must speak, what their children must learn, and who they must associate with they are legislating love, or, to be more precise, imposing their religion’s morality on everyone and calling it love.

Criminal laws dictate behavior by prohibiting then punishing certain acts. Socialist law is not the same as punishing bad behavior like murder, theft, rape, and so on. Filthy Socialist moralists are legislating the behavior of decent, law-abiding, citizens, without putting a dent in criminal behavior, and they use tax dollars to do it.

 

[WinterBorn]

Socialism is a political system, not a religion.

The SCOTUS has consistently ruled that the First Amendment created a separation of church & state. If you want to know what the wall is made of, I would say it is made of 'Freedom'.

When the church has been allowed in public forums it has consistently oppressed other religions and ridiculed those who hold no religious beliefs. It demands that public laws be based on Christian doctrines, which does establish a state religion. As a matter of fact, christians are still demanding laws be based on their faith.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Socialism is a political system, not a religion.

The SCOTUS has consistently ruled that the First Amendment created a separation of church & state. If you want to know what the wall is made of, I would say it is made of 'Freedom'.

When the church has been allowed in public forums it has consistently oppressed other religions and ridiculed those who hold no religious beliefs. It demands that public laws be based on Christian doctrines, which does establish a state religion. As a matter of fact, christians are still demanding laws be based on their faith.

You have the concept dead wrong. And, its provenance, as well.

1. As for the famous “separation of church and state,” the phrase appears in no federal document. In fact, at the time of ratification of the Constitution, ten of the thirteen colonies had some provision recognizing Christianity as either the official, or the recommended religion in their state constitutions.

a. From the 1790 Massachusetts Constitution, written by John Adams, includes: [the] good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend(s) upon piety, religion, and morality…by the institution of public worship of God and of the public instruction in piety, religion, and morality…”Massachusetts Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

b. North Carolina Constitution, article 32, 1776: “That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of either the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall b e capable of holding any office, or place of trust or profit, in the civil department, within this State.” Constitution of North Carolina, 1776

c. So, the Founders intention was to be sure that the federal government didn’t do the same, and mandate a national religion. And when Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, it was to reassure them the federal government could not interfere in their religious observations, i.e., there is “a wall of separation between church and state.” He wasn’t speaking of religion contaminating the government, but of the government contaminating religious observance.


"The SCOTUS has consistently ruled that the First Amendment created a separation of church & state."
Not quite.


2. During the course of American judicial history, particularly with the landmark decision of Everson v. Board of Education, Jefferson was subtly and erroneously attributed with the remark ‘high and impregnable’ wall. The force behind the misguided interpretation comes from the anti-Catholic former Ku Klux Klan member, Justice Hugo Black: The ‘high and impregnable’ wall central to the past 50 years of church-state jurisprudence is not Jefferson’s wall; rather, it is the wall that Justice Hugo Black built in 1947 in Everson v. Board of Education. The full quote by Justice Hugo Black is, ‘The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.’ In essence, Justice Hugo Black with his often quoted remark conflated Jefferson’s trope of separation between church and state with the First Amendment which references the non-establishment clause and free exercise of religion. Those were two entirely separate concepts at the time in 1802.

Essentially, the argument resolves itself into whether one agrees with the Constitution, or with political appointees.


3. “[Black's] affinity for church-state separation and the metaphor was rooted in virulent anti-Catholicism. Philip Hamburger has argued that Justice Black, a former Alabama Ku Klux Klansman, was the product of a remarkable "confluence of Protestant [specifically Baptist], nativist, and progressive anti-Catholic forces.... Black's association with the Klan has been much discussed in connection with his liberal views on race, but, in fact, his membership suggests more about [his] ideals of Americanism," especially his support for separation of church and state. "Black had long before sworn, under the light of flaming crosses, to preserve ‘the sacred constitutional rights' of ‘free public schools' and ‘separation of church and state.'" Although he later distanced himself from the Klan, "Black's distaste for Catholicism did not diminish."
Hamburger, ‘Separation of Church and State’, pp. 423, 434, 462, 463
__________________

 

[WinterBorn]

Socialism is a political system, not a religion.

The SCOTUS has consistently ruled that the First Amendment created a separation of church & state. If you want to know what the wall is made of, I would say it is made of 'Freedom'.

When the church has been allowed in public forums it has consistently oppressed other religions and ridiculed those who hold no religious beliefs. It demands that public laws be based on Christian doctrines, which does establish a state religion. As a matter of fact, christians are still demanding laws be based on their faith.

b. North Carolina Constitution, article 32, 1776: “That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of either the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall b e capable of holding any office, or place of trust or profit, in the civil department, within this State.” Constitution of North Carolina, 1776


__________________

Luckily this particular claim for NC has not been pressed. A couple of years ago they elected an atheist to public office. Plenty of people hoped for a squaring off, but he was sworn in and no fuss was made.

I'm still amazed that Judge Roy Moore is running for Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, after having been removed for his "10 Commandments Monument" fiasco.

The days of church rule are over. The US Constitution is being followed as its writer intended. T. Jefferson was certainly no Christian or even a fan of the church.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Socialism is a political system, not a religion.

The SCOTUS has consistently ruled that the First Amendment created a separation of church & state. If you want to know what the wall is made of, I would say it is made of 'Freedom'.

When the church has been allowed in public forums it has consistently oppressed other religions and ridiculed those who hold no religious beliefs. It demands that public laws be based on Christian doctrines, which does establish a state religion. As a matter of fact, christians are still demanding laws be based on their faith.

b. North Carolina Constitution, article 32, 1776: “That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of either the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall b e capable of holding any office, or place of trust or profit, in the civil department, within this State.” Constitution of North Carolina, 1776


__________________

Luckily this particular claim for NC has not been pressed. A couple of years ago they elected an atheist to public office. Plenty of people hoped for a squaring off, but he was sworn in and no fuss was made.

I'm still amazed that Judge Roy Moore is running for Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, after having been removed for his "10 Commandments Monument" fiasco.

The days of church rule are over. The US Constitution is being followed as its writer intended. T. Jefferson was certainly no Christian or even a fan of the church.

It is clear that you have a studied desire to misunderstand both Jefferson, and Hugo Black.

If originalists get to take their place on the court, religion and morality will have the moment that the Founders meant them to have.


"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."

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

Daniel L. Dresbach, Professor of Justice, Law, and Society at American University in Washington D.C., and author of Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State writes an article for The Heritage Foundation that brilliantly elucidates Jefferson’s famous trobe.

To provide some context, “the Baptists who supported Jefferson were outsiders — a beleaguered religious and political minority in region where a Congregationalist-Federalist axis dominated political life.” They were seeking reassurances of a religion friendly disposition from their new president who was horribly vilified during the election as an “infidel and atheist.” This rumor had become so widespread during the presidential campaign, New England housewives were known to have buried their family Bibles in the backyards so fearful that the new Administration would confiscate their Holy Scriptures.

So this famous letter having to do with the ‘wall of separation between church and state’ was a political statement giving his reassurances to the Baptists that he was a friend to religion, and a response to the vilification he received from the Federalist Congregationalist establishment in Connecticut. This was not a definitive manifesto on the relationship between government and religion.

In fact, his actions as president run counter to how modern day historians and justices construe this letter. President Jefferson supported the use of federal funds to be used to build churches and to help Christian missionary work among the Indians. So the modern day perception of Jefferson’s wall directly flies in face of how Jefferson behaved in his political life.


It seems that you have been sorely mislead.

 

[Flanders]

Socialism is a political system, not a religion.

To Winterborn: Socialism is religion passing itself off as a form of government. Many socialists go so far as to say socialism is not a government, but it is an economic system. After 12 years of debating this issue with Socialists, I am too tired to cite the countless ways socialism is identified as a religion.

Obviously, the Socialist priesthood must deny that socialism is a religion. Anything less than denial runs afoul of the First Amendment.

Socialist priests do not debate on message boards, or anywhere else for that matter. Over the years, I’ve learned that nothing I can say penetrates the Socialist laity’s thinking anyway. Knowing where debating socialism-the-religion always goes, I offer two items for you to consider:

1. Funding the morality of a single group is funding a religion. Funding Socialist morality i.e., the welfare state, the Affordable Care Act, and so on raises the inevitable question: Why fund your morality and not mine? That simple truth should be enough to invoke the First Amendment; consequently, stop funding one group’s morality over all others.

2. Is Islam a religion or is it form of government? The question is rhetorical; so you need not respond. No matter how you answer for your own satisfaction apply your answer to Socialism.

T. Jefferson was certainly no Christian or even a fan of the church.

To Winterborn: His signature on the Declaration of Independence he authored indicates he believed in a Supreme Being.

 

[WinterBorn]

b. North Carolina Constitution, article 32, 1776: “That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of either the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall b e capable of holding any office, or place of trust or profit, in the civil department, within this State.” Constitution of North Carolina, 1776


__________________

Luckily this particular claim for NC has not been pressed. A couple of years ago they elected an atheist to public office. Plenty of people hoped for a squaring off, but he was sworn in and no fuss was made.

I'm still amazed that Judge Roy Moore is running for Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, after having been removed for his "10 Commandments Monument" fiasco.

The days of church rule are over. The US Constitution is being followed as its writer intended. T. Jefferson was certainly no Christian or even a fan of the church.

It is clear that you have a studied desire to misunderstand both Jefferson, and Hugo Black.

If originalists get to take their place on the court, religion and morality will have the moment that the Founders meant them to have.


"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."

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

Daniel L. Dresbach, Professor of Justice, Law, and Society at American University in Washington D.C., and author of Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State writes an article for The Heritage Foundation that brilliantly elucidates Jefferson’s famous trobe.

To provide some context, “the Baptists who supported Jefferson were outsiders — a beleaguered religious and political minority in region where a Congregationalist-Federalist axis dominated political life.” They were seeking reassurances of a religion friendly disposition from their new president who was horribly vilified during the election as an “infidel and atheist.” This rumor had become so widespread during the presidential campaign, New England housewives were known to have buried their family Bibles in the backyards so fearful that the new Administration would confiscate their Holy Scriptures.

So this famous letter having to do with the ‘wall of separation between church and state’ was a political statement giving his reassurances to the Baptists that he was a friend to religion, and a response to the vilification he received from the Federalist Congregationalist establishment in Connecticut. This was not a definitive manifesto on the relationship between government and religion.

In fact, his actions as president run counter to how modern day historians and justices construe this letter. President Jefferson supported the use of federal funds to be used to build churches and to help Christian missionary work among the Indians. So the modern day perception of Jefferson’s wall directly flies in face of how Jefferson behaved in his political life.


It seems that you have been sorely mislead.

There are too many quotes which show Jefferson not only to not be a christian, but to not think very highly of the church.

"The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs." -- Letter to James Smith, December 8, 1822

"The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation is ever dangerous. Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion; and a step to right or left might place Him within the grasp of the priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the Being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle Him in the web of the law. He was justifiable, therefore, in avoiding these by evasions, by sophisms, by misconstructions and misapplications of scraps of the prophets, and in defending Himself with these their own weapons, as sufficient, ad homines, at least. That Jesus did not mean to impose Himself on mankind as the Son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in the lore." -- Thomas Jefferson's letter to William Short, August 4, 1820

"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose." - to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." - "Notes on Virginia"

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose." - to Baron von Humboldt, 1813

"They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live."

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."

"We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication ."

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law." -letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot.... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose." - to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814


And the best one for this topic:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and 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 and State."
-letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT "The Complete Jefferson" by Saul K. Padover, pp 518-519





Jefferson approved of the charity work done by the churches of his time. But he certainly did not wish to see any religion have any sway on gov't affairs. And he was certainly not a Christian. At best he could be called a deist.

 

[WinterBorn]

Socialism is a political system, not a religion.

To Winterborn: Social is religion passing itself off as a form of government. Many socialists go so far as to say socialism is not a government, but it is an economic system. After 12 years of debating this issue with Socialists, I am too tired cite the countless ways socialism is identified as a religion.

Obviously, the Socialist priesthood must deny that socialism is a religion. Anything less than denial runs afoul of the First Amendment.

Socialist priests do not debate on message boards, or anywhere else for that matter. Over the years, I’ve learned that nothing I can say penetrates the Socialist laity’s thinking anyway. Knowing where debating socialism-the-religion always goes, I offer two items for you to consider:

1. Funding the morality of a single group is funding a religion. Funding Socialist morality i.e., the welfare state, the Affordable Care Act, and so on raises the inevitable question: Why fund your morality and not mine? That simple truth should be enough to invoke the First Amendment; consequently, stop funding one group’s morality over all others.

2. Is Islam a religion or is it form of government? The question is rhetorical; so you need not respond. No matter how you answer for your own satisfaction apply your answer to Socialism.

T. Jefferson was certainly no Christian or even a fan of the church.

To Winterborn: His signature on the Declaration of Independence he authored indicates he believed in a Supreme Being.

I did not say Jefferson was an atheist, just that he was not a Christian.

Socialism is a form of gov't. If calling it a religion makes it easier for you to dislike it or make arguments against it (or for funding religious groups) then feel free to do so.

As for funding one form of morality and not another, you are confusing religion with morality. They are not the same thing.

 

[George Costanza]

You have the concept dead wrong. And, its provenance, as well.

No, my friend - YOU are the one with the poor concepts in this case, I'm afraid. He is spot on.

 

[Flanders]

WinterBorn;5280168]
I did not say Jefferson was an atheist, just that he was not a Christian.

To WinterBorn: Jefferson was anti-Catholic but defined himself as a Christian. He was a member of the Episcopal Church and very involved in governing his church.

Incidentally, I sense you mean “Catholic” when you say the word “church” in the context you used in #2 permalink:

The days of church rule are over.

Surely, you can find better ways to emulate Jefferson!

Socialism is a form of gov't. If calling it a religion makes it easier for you to dislike it or make arguments against it (or for funding religious groups) then feel free to do so.

To WinterBorn: I call it a religion because it is a religion. In that sense it is easy.

As for funding one form of morality and not another, you are confusing religion with morality. They are not the same thing.

To WinterBorn: There is no confusion when Socialists legislate their morality and fund it with tax dollars.