David Barton's blog

The Legislature by David Barton

On which precedents did the Court construct this new test for constitutionality? And strike down the State laws? PRE-1947: 37; POST-1947: 105. Levitt v. Committee for Public Education, 1973 New York law mandated that all schools within the State both public and nonpublic keep certain secular administrative records i.e., testing, attendance, etc. The required record-keeping was costly; therefore, the legislature appropriated money for public schools to cover these expenses and felt it should do the same for the nonpublic schools upon whom it was forcing the requirements. The legislature therefore:

Appropriated $28,000,000 for the purpose of reimbursing nonpublic schools throughout the State “for the preparation and submission to the State of various other reports as provided for or required by law or regulation.” Although the aid was for nonreligious, State-mandated activities, the Court ruled it unconstitutional. On what basis? PRE-1947: 0; POST-1947: 21. Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 1973

To ensure that students had safe facilities in which to attend school, the New York legislature provided money for the “ ‘maintenance and repair’ of facilities and equipment to ensure the students’ ‘health, welfare and safety.’ ” 11 The funding was made available in large amounts for public schools; and since the State also collected school taxes from private-school families, it provided funding in token amounts for qualifying nonpublic schools. The Court declared the legislature’s action unconstitutional. On which First Amendment precedents? PRE-1947: 22; POST-1947: 177. Stone v. Graham, 1980

When the Court ruled it unconstitutional for students to view the Ten Commandments while at school, 12 what was the basis for its decision? PRE-1947: 0; POST-1947: 15. Marsh v. Chambers, 1983

The Marsh case 13 involved a challenge against legislative chaplains. The Court ruled the chaplaincy to be constitutional, which is not surprising since it relied primarily on earlier sources. Which sources? PRE-1947: 46; POST-1947: 13. Lynch v. Donnelly, 1984

The great pillars of all government by David Barton

The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts. John Jay Original Chief Justice U.S. Supreme Court the Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society; the best book for regulating the temporal secular concerns of men.  Noah Webster

Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses. James McHenry, Signer of the Constitution

Not only did the Court disregard these stated beliefs of the Founders, it falsely asserted: The First Amendment’s purpose was not to strike merely at the official establishment of a single sect. It was to create a complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority. This absurd claim completely reverses the Founders’ intent; their purpose for the First Amendment was to “strike at the official establishment of a single sect” and definitely was not to completely and permanently separate the religious and civil spheres. Notice emphasis added in each quote: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.  George Washington

The great pillars of all government and of social life are virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible. Patrick Henry

One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations. I verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society. Joseph Story, U.S. Supreme Court Justice; Father of American Jurisprudence

We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. Benjamin Franklin

A chapter in the Holy Bible by David Barton

However, perhaps the most serious and long lasting effect of that case was the Court’s transformation of the First Amendment prohibition against the establishment of a national church into the prohibition of a voluntary religious activity by students. School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, 1963

This case involved yet another voluntary activity by students: the use of the Scriptures. At issue was a Pennsylvania policy which stated: Each school shall be opened by the reading, without comment, of a chapter in the Holy Bible. Participation in the opening exercises is voluntary. The student reading the verses from the Bible may select the passages and read from any version he chooses.

The Court explained:

There are no prefatory statements, no questions asked or solicited, no comments or explanations made and no interpretations given at or during the exercises. The students and parents are advised that the student may absent himself from the classroom or, should he elect to remain, not participate in the exercises. Like the New York prayer, this seemed to be a relatively innocuous activity. It was voluntary; it was student-led; no additional instruction or comments were permitted. Yet today’s civil libertarians portray this as a coercion case so much so, they claim, that Edward Schempp thought himself forced to file suit to relieve his children from the coercion. However, the facts of the case disprove this assertion: Roger and Donna two of the Schempp children testified that they had never protested to their teachers or other persons of authority in the school system concerning the practices of which they now complain in this lawsuit. In fact, on occasion, Donna herself had volunteered to read the Bible.

Furthermore, so non-coercive was the policy that while other children were reading the Bible, one of the Schempp children had been permitted to read the Koran. The facts in the case clearly establish that there was no coercion. However, when this case finally reached the Supreme Court, these facts, presented in the District Court, were ignored. Another argument raised then and still raised today is that the school setting is no place for religious activities; if such activities are to occur, it should be at home or in a private school. Justice Stewart, in his dissent, pointed out the constitutional fallacy of such arguments: It might be argued here that parents who wanted their children to be exposed to religious influences in school could send their children to private or parochial schools. But the consideration which renders this contention too facile simplistic to be determinative a factor has already been recognized by the Court: “Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion is available to all, not merely to those who can pay their own way.” Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 111.

Religion of Secularism by David Barton

It might also be argued that parents who want their children exposed to religious influences can adequately fulfill that wish off school property and outside school time. With all its surface persuasiveness, however, this argument seriously misconceives the basic constitutional justification for permitting the exercises at issue in these cases. For a compulsory state educational system so structures a child’s life that if religious exercises are held to an impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvantage. Viewed in this light, permission of such exercises for those who want them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion. And a refusal to permit religious exercises thus is seen, not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism.

Furthermore, the Founders’ opinion of the Bible, and of its use in schools, was clear: The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effectual means of extirpating extinguishing Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools. The Bible, when not read in schools, is seldom read in any subsequent period of life. It should be read in our schools in preference to all other books from its containing the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and public temporal happiness. Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration

Why should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the Sacred Book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and probably if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind. Fisher Ames, Author of the House Language for the First Amendment

The Divine Origin of Christianity by David Barton

For example: The idea of infidelity a disbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or the divine origin of Christianity cannot be treated with too much resentment or too much horror. The man who can think of it with patience is a traitor in his heart and ought to be execrated denounced as one who adds the deepest hypocrisy to the blackest treason. John Adams

I anticipate nothing but suffering to the human race while the present systems of paganism, deism, and atheism prevail in the world. Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration

The attempt by the rulers of a nation France to destroy all religious opinion and to pervert a whole people to atheism is a phenomenon of profligacy act of moral depravity. To establish atheism on the ruins of Christianity is to deprive mankind of its best consolations and most animating hopes and to make a gloomy desert of the universe. Alexander Hamilton

During my residence there in France, I do not recollect to have had more than two conversations with atheists about their tenets. The first was this: I was at a large party, of which were several of that description. They spoke freely and contemptuously of religion. I took no part in the conversation. In the course of it, one of them asked me if I believed in Christ. I answered that I did, and that I thanked God that I did. Some time afterward, one of my families being dangerously ill, I was advised to send for an English physician who had resided many years at Paris. But, it was added, he is an atheist. During one of his visits, he very abruptly remarked that there was no God and he hoped the time would come when there would be no religion in the world. I very concisely remarked that if there was no God there could be no moral obligations, and I did not see how society could subsist without them. And he, probably perceiving that his sentiments met with a cold reception, did not afterwards resume the subject. John Jay, Original Chief Justice U.S. Supreme Court

The rising greatness of our country is greatly tarnished by the general prevalence of deism which, with me, is but another name for vice and depravity. I hear it is said by the deists that I am one of their number; and indeed that some good people think I am no Christian. This thought gives me much more pain than the appellation of Tory being called a traitor, because I think religion of infinitely higher importance than politics. Being a Christian is a character which I prize far above all this world has or can boast. Patrick Henry

Christian Religion by David Barton

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion as it has in itself no character of enmity hatred against the laws, religion or tranquility of Mussel men Muslims and as the said States America have never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This article may be read in two manners. It may, as its critics do, be concluded after the clause “Christian religion”; or it may be read in its entirety and concluded when the punctuation so indicates. But even if shortened and cut abruptly “the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion”, this is not an untrue statement since it is referring to the federal government.

Recall that while the Founders themselves openly described America as a Christian nation demonstrated in chapter 2, they did include a constitutional prohibition against a federal establishment; religion was a matter left solely to the individual States. Therefore, if the article is read as a declaration that the federal government of the United States was not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, such a statement is not a repudiation of the fact that America was considered a Christian nation.

Reading the clause of the treaty in its entirety also fails to weaken this fact. Article XI simply distinguished America from those historical strains of European Christianity which held an inherent hatred of Muslims; it simply assured the Muslims that the United States was not a Christian nation like those of previous centuries with whose practices the Muslims were very familiar and thus would not undertake a religious holy war against them. This latter reading is, in fact, supported by the attitude prevalent among numerous American leaders.

Establishing a Stronger Government by David Barton

With independence now a reality, the national legislators turned their full attention toward permanently securing America’s newly gained liberty. To this end, delegates from each State were sent to Philadelphia in May 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation the document under which the national government had functioned during the Revolution. It soon became evident that revising the Articles was insufficient; a new government pact was needed.

While the delegates had not originally convened to write a constitution, their work ultimately produced an entirely new document the United States Constitution. Therefore, that Philadelphia gathering is now referred to as the “Constitutional Convention.” One of the longest speeches in the Convention was delivered by its elder statesman, Benjamin Franklin. James Madison, who kept fastidious personal records of the Convention’s events and debates, recorded the stirring speech delivered by the 81 year-old statesman on June 28, 1787.

Addressing George Washington, President of the Convention, Franklin declared: Mr. President: The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasoning’s with each other our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many nodes as ayes is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom since we have been running about in search of it.

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights, to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection.

Providence by David Barton

For example, the citizens of Pepperell, Massachusetts, sent many loads of grain to Boston; and their leader, William Prescott, must have summed up the feelings of a great many Americans when he wrote the Bostonians: We heartily sympathize with you and are always ready to do all in our power for your support, comfort and relief; knowing that Providence has placed you where you must stand the first shock. Our forefathers passed the vast Atlantic, spent their blood and treasure that they might enjoy their liberties both civil and religious, and transmit them to their posterity.

Now if we should give them up, can our children rise up and call us blessed? Let us all be of one heart and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free; and may He of His infinite mercy grant us deliverance out of all our troubles. The other Colonies recognized that the British might continue their offensive tactics beyond Massachusetts and saw the need for a united strategy. Revolutionary surgeon and historian David Ramsay of South Carolina reported that: It was a natural idea that for harmonizing their measures a Congress of deputies from each province should be convened.

This call for a joint “harmonizing of measures” resulted in America’s first national Congress as leaders gathered in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774. The next day, they officially convened and: Resolved, That the Rev’d. Mr. Duché be desired to open the Congress tomorrow morning with prayers, at the Carpenter’s Hall, at 9 o’clock. The records for the following day reported: Wednesday, September 7, 1774, 9 o’clock a. m. Agreeable to the resolve of yesterday, the meeting was opened with prayers by the Rev’d. Mr. Duché.

Voted, that the thanks of Congress be given to Mr. Duché for performing Divine service and for the excellent prayer which he composed and delivered on the occasion. John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail, provided additional detail on that time of prayer: When the Congress first met, Mr. Thomas Cushing of Massachusetts made a motion that it should be opened with prayer. Mr. Samuel Adams moved that Mr. Duché, an Episcopal clergyman, might be desired to read prayers to the Congress tomorrow morning.

The Argument for Separation of Church and State by David Barton

United States v. Macintosh, 1931 United States Supreme Court This case concerned a Canadian who applied for naturalization; although occurring 140 years after the ratification of the Constitution, the U. S. Supreme Court was still articulating the same message: We are a Christian people according to one another the equal right of religious freedom and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God. Zorach v. Clauson, 1952 United States Supreme Court. Although this case was after the 1947 Everson case announcing “the wall between church and state,” the Court nevertheless continued to uphold the constitutionality of students receiving religious instruction during the school day.

However, this case represented a major departure from historical precedent in that the Court ruled that the instruction must occur off campus. Even that decision, though radical at the time, was still light-years away from the Court’s current position. That ruling declared: The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. Otherwise the State and religion would be aliens to each other hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly. We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.

When the State encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, it follows the best of our traditions. For it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs. To hold that it may not would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would prefer those who believe in no religion over those who do believe. We find no constitutional requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and to throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective scope of religious influence.

The Court concluded that the argument for separation of church and state did not apply to student religious instruction during school hours unless separation of Church and State means that public institutions can make no adjustments of their schedules to accommodate the religious needs of the people. We cannot read into the Bill of Rights such a philosophy of hostility to religion. As evident from the numerous cases excerpted above, contemporary courts have abundant legal precedents on which they may rely. The simple fact is that these precedents are ignored.

The Christian Religion by David Barton

The People v. Ruggles, 1811 Supreme Court of New York This was the second case cited in Holy Trinity, and the facts are described in the case: The defendant was indicted for that he did wickedly, maliciously, and blasphemously utter and with a loud voice publish in the presence and hearing of divers good and Christian people, of and concerning the Christian religion, and of and concerning Jesus Christ, the false, scandalous, malicious, wicked and blasphemous words following: “Jesus Christ was a bastard and his mother must be a whore,” in contempt of the Christian religion. The defendant was tried and found guilty and was sentenced by the court to be imprisoned for three months and to pay a fine of $500.

The defendant’s attorney had presented a simple defense:  There are no statutes concerning religion. The constitution allows a free toleration to all religions and all kinds of worship. Judaism and Mahometanism may be preached here without any legal animadversion criticism. The prisoner may have been a Jew, a Mahometan, or a Socinian: and if so, he had a right, by the constitution, to declare his opinions. The court’s decision in this case was delivered by Chief Justice James Kent, who, along with Justice Joseph Story, is considered one of the two Fathers of American Jurisprudence.

In fact, Kent’s four volume Commentaries on American Law eventually replaced Blackstone’s as the standard for American law. Notice Judge Kent’s decision in this case: Nothing could be more offensive to the virtuous part of the community, or more injurious to the tender morals of the young, than to declare such profanity lawful. The free, equal, and undisturbed enjoyment of religious opinion, whatever it may be, and free and decent discussions on any religious subject, is granted and secured; but to revile the religion professed by almost the whole community is an abuse of that right. We are a Christian people and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity and not upon the doctrines or worships of those impostors other religions. We are peopling whose manners and whose morals have been elevated and inspired by means of the Christian religion.

Though the constitution has discarded religious establishments, it does not forbid judicial cognizance of those offenses against religion and morality which have no reference to any such establishment. This constitutional declaration noble and magnanimous as it is, when duly understood never meant to withdraw religion in general, and with it the best sanctions of moral and social obligation from all consideration and notice of the law.