Understanding the History of the First Amendment
The Origins of Religious Liberty in America
The history of religious liberty in America makes for engaging story telling, and there are many primary sources to help give students a first hand look at the passions and ideologies sweeping our nation in the 18th century.
Informed by Experience
James Madison’s original wording of the religious portion of our current first amendment read, “The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience by in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.” (Congressional Register, I, 423-37 and Gazette of the US., 10 and 13 June 1789)
His writing was informed by the history and experiences of his time, but the debates today about religious liberty are little changed from the ones he knew in the late 18th century.
The History of Religious Liberty
Madison was pivotal in helping Thomas Jefferson push through the 1786 Virginia Act for the Establishing Religious Freedom. They both argued that state support for religion is wrong, because forcing citizens to support with their taxes a faith contrary to their beliefs violates their natural rights .
Wrote Madison, “During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." (Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments June 20, 1785)
Concurring, Jefferson observed in the Virginia Act, “The Religion … of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. … 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.”
The Great Awakening
Madison and Jefferson, like others of their time, were influenced by a religious revival known as “The Great Awakening” that swept our fledgling nation between 1728-1790. This period marked a clash between Enlightenment ideas of reason and moral relativism, and traditional Calvinist notions of God’s supremacy.
The Great Awakening:
- Unified Christian views across many denominations by reinforcing the personal relationship between worshippers and God.
- Brought together diverse denominations like Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians with a shared evangelical voice.
- Built support for religious choice.
- Dissolved theocratic tendencies entrenched in Virginia and North Carolina.
Separation of Church and State
Author Philip Hamburger [Separation of Church and State, Harvard Press, 2002] presents the most contemporary view of dissenters of the period, when he suggests that despite the inclusion of the first amendment in the Bill of Rights, the “wall” of separation of church and state is a modern notion not endorsed by our founders.
Writes Hamburger, "…Religious dissenters and their allies often condemned a "union of church and state," but in rejecting this extreme, they did not embrace the other. Instead, they usually took care to reject only the "adulterous" or "illicit connection" formed by an establishment of religion. In this way, dissenters almost always avoided any suggestion that they wanted a more general separation of church and state.”
Hamburger is correct (and not alone) in pointing out that the words “separation of church and state” appear nowhere in the Constitution. But others argue that the intent is clear, citing Thomas Jefferson’s oft quoted 1802 “Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association":
“…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 legitimate 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. …”
A few years later, James Madison echoed those sentiments in his essay, “Monopolies” [Monopolies Perpetuities Corporations Ecclesiastical Endowments, 1819], “Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history."
But evidence for the “wall” goes back even farther, to Baptist minister Isaac Backus, who declared in 1773, when “ church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued."
The “wall” has been challenged time and again, and will probably be challenged well into the future. But Madison’s history and experiences in 18th century America, from the Great Awakening to the Virginia Religious Freedom act informed his efforts to create an enduring First Amendment that continues to protect our religious liberty today, and to form the foundation of our Constitution.
