David Barton

Religious service is usually performed on Sundays at the Treasury office and at the Capitol. I went both forenoon and afternoon to the Treasury. Weekly church services were held in the U. S. Capitol continually from 1795 until well after the Civil War, and were regularly attended by U. S. Presidents, Senators, and Representatives. The practices of the original Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches all repudiate today’s doctrine of “separation of church and state” which purports that our Founding Fathers disapproved of religious activities in official public settings.

America’s rapid rise as a successful nation was a wonder to many foreigners; how could a group of farmers and merchants have defeated what was arguably the world’s greatest military power? Furthermore, how had America established a government which so quickly became envied across the world? To answer questions such as these, many foreign writers traveled to America first to investigate and then to report their findings to their own countrymen. Consequently, their observations on America and American life are perhaps some of the more objective and informative.

One such visitor was Edward Kendall. He traversed America in 1807 and 1808 and then returned to Great Britain where in 1809 he published his three-volume work, Travels in America. Notice his description of election day in America from his visit to Connecticut in 1807:

At about eleven o’clock, his Excellency Governor Jonathan Trumbull entered the statehouse and shortly after took his place at the head of a procession which was made to a meetinghouse or church at something less that half a mile distance. The procession was on foot and was composed of the person of the governor, together with the lieutenant-governor, assistants, high-sheriffs, members of the lower house of assembly, and, unless with accidental exceptions, all the clergy of the State.

The pulpit or, as it is here called, the desk, was filled by three if not four clergymen; a number which, by its form and dimensions, it was able to accommodate. Of these, one opened the service with a prayer; another delivered a sermon; a third made a concluding prayer, and a fourth pronounced a benediction. Several hymns were sung; and, among others, an occasional one a special one for that occasion. The total number of singers was between forty and fifty. The sermon, as will be supposed, touched upon matters of government. When all was finished, the procession returned to the statehouse.

Late in his life, after requesting permission from President Washington, Duché returned to America where he spent his remaining years request was therefore referred to a committee of Daniel Roberdeau, John Adams, and Jonathan Smith 103 who examined the possibilities and then on September 11, reported to Congress: That the use of the Bible is so universal, and its importance so great your Committee recommend that Congress will order the Committee of Commerce to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or elsewhere, into the different ports of the States of the Union.

Congress agreed and ordered the Bibles imported. On October 31, in consequence of several unexpected American victories Bennington, Stillwater, Saratoga, and others, Congress appointed Samuel Adams, Richard Henry Lee, and Daniel Roberdeau to draft a proclamation for a national day of prayer and thanksgiving.

On November 1, 1777, Congress approved that proclamation, which declared: Forasmuch as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to Him for benefits received and to implore such farther blessings as they stand in need of to offer humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot our sins out of remembrance and to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth “in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

On December 15, 1777, John Adams reported to Abigail that the direct, open, and frequent intervention of God was evident to most Americans: I have had many opportunities in the course of this journey to observe how deeply rooted our righteous cause is in the minds of the people. One evening as I sat in one room, I overheard a company of the common sort of people in another room conversing upon serious subjects. At length I heard these words: “It appears to me the eternal Son of God is operating powerfully against the British nation for their treating lightly serious things.” That spiritual tone extended far beyond the passing conversation of just the “common sort of people”; it was also evident among the people’s leaders.

It’s president immediately preceding the Revolution was the Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, later a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a venerated leader among the patriots. Notice some of Princeton’s requirements while John Witherspoon was president: Every student shall attend worship in the college hall morning and evening at the hours appointed and shall behave with gravity and reverence during the whole service. Every student shall attend public worship on the Sabbath.

Besides the public exercises of religious worship on the Sabbath, there shall be assigned to each class certain exercises for their religious instruction suited to the age and standing of the pupils and no student belonging to any class shall neglect them. Signers James Madison, Richard Stockton, Benjamin Rush, Gunning Bedford, Jonathan Dayton, and numerous other prominent Founders, graduated from Princeton a seminary for the training of ministers.

In 1754, Dartmouth College of New Hampshire made especially famous by alumnus Daniel Webster’s defense of its charter before the U. S. Supreme Court in 1819 39 was founded by the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock. Its charter was very succinct as to its purpose: Where as the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock educated a number of the children of the Indian natives with a view to their carrying the Gospel in their own language and spreading the knowledge of the great Redeemer among their savage tribes. And the design became reputable among the Indians insomuch that a larger number desired the education of their children in said school.

Therefore Dartmouth-College is established for the education and instruction of youth sin reading, writing and all parts of learning which shall appear necessary and expedient for civilizing and Christianizing the children. That same year 1754, King’s College was founded in New York. Following the American Revolution, its name was changed to Columbia College; and in 1787, Constitution signer William Samuel Johnson was appointed its first president. Columbia’s admission requirements were straightforward: No candidate shall be admitted into the College unless he shall be able to rend into English the Gospels from the Greek.

Under federal statutes, Samuel Davis had been convicted, fined, and sentenced to jail for bigamy and polygamy. He appealed, and before the Supreme Court his attorneys argued that laws against bigamy and polygamy: 1 were a violation of the First Amendment because they interfered with Davis and other Mormon’s free exercise of religion; and 2 the Idaho law under which he was convicted was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment which prohibited the States from making laws that interfered with the rights of their citizens.

The Court rejected those arguments; its response was very straightforward and succinct: Bigamy and polygamy are crimes by the laws of all civilized and Christian countries. They are crimes by the laws of the United States and they are crimes by the laws of Idaho. They tend to destroy the purity of the marriage relation, to disturb the peace of families, to degrade woman and to debase man. To extend exemption from punishment for such crimes would be to shock the moral judgment of the community.

To call their advocacy a tenet of religion is to offend the common sense of mankind. There have been sects who denied as a part of their religious tenets that there should be any marriage tie, and advocated promiscuous intercourse of the sexes as prompted by the passions of its members. Should a sect of either of these kinds ever find its way into this country, swift punishment would follow the carrying into effect of its doctrines and no heed would be given to the pretence that their supporters could be protected in their exercise by the Constitution of the United States? Probably never before in the history of this country has it been seriously contended that the whole punitive power of the government for acts recognized by the general consent of the Christian world must be suspended in order that the tenets of a religious sect may be carried out without hindrance.

The constitutions of several States, in providing for religious freedom, have declared expressly that such freedom shall not be construed to excuse acts of licentiousness looseness and immorality. The constitution of New York of 1777 provided as follows: “The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever thereafter be allowed within this State to all mankind: Provided, That the liberty of conscience hereby granted shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness.”

By definition, “natural rights” included “that which the Books of the Law and the Gospel do contain.” Very simply, “natural rights” incorporated what God Himself had guaranteed to man in the Scriptures. Thus when Jefferson assured the Baptists that by following their “natural rights” they would violate no social duty, it was understood that he was affirming to them his belief that the free exercise of religion was their inalienable God given right.

They were therefore assured that the issue of religious expressions was above federal jurisdiction. So clearly did Jefferson understand the Source of America’s inalienable rights that he even doubted whether America could survive if we ever lost that knowledge? He queried: And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have lost the only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?

That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Jefferson believed that God, not government, was the Author and Source of our rights and that the government, therefore, was to be prevented from interference with those rights. Very simply, the “fence” of the Webster letter and the “wall” of the Danbury letter were not to limit religious activities in public; rather they were to limit the power of the government to prohibit or interfere with those expressions.

Earlier courts long understood Jefferson’s intent. In fact, when Jefferson’s letter was invoked by the Court only once prior to the 1947 Everson case the Reynolds v. United States case in 1878, unlike today’s Courts which publish only his eight word separation phrase, that Court published a lengthy section from Jefferson’s letter, and then concluded: Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it Jefferson’s letter may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the Amendment thus secured.

Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere religious opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order. That Court then succinctly summarized Jefferson’s intent for “separation of church and state”: The rightful purposes of civil government are for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order. In this is found the true distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State.