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Separation of church and state? Yes, to the extent that Congress shall make no law as to the establishment of a state religion. Their concern was that one sect of Christianity may become too controlling, the way it was in England.
The "No Official National Religion" Interpretation Of The Establishment Clause Is Hogwash!
Counterfeit Christians wishing to reunite church and state have endeavored to foist the “No National Church” interpretation of the establishment clause upon the American people ever since 1811 when it was conjured up by the Devil himself and issued to Representative Laban Wheaton (Connecticut) twenty-two years after the First Amendment was written.
Laban Wheaton was a Federalist who made no secret of his desire for the government to re-assume civil authority over the duty that we owe to the Creator. However, the House of Representatives in 1811 was unreceptive to his devilish scheme to expand the two Congressional Chaplainships to impose a government established religion over the ten miles square of the District of Columbia.
Wheaton and Representative Timothy Pitkin (Massachusetts) challenged Founding Father and President James Madison’s 1811 veto of a bill incorporating an Episcopal Church in Alexandria in the District of Columbia. President Madison, one of the six men who authored the First Amendment, believed the bill violated the establishment clause by establishing rules and procedures that could never be amended by the church, to govern the selection and removal of the minister of the church. (Note: The vetoed law, despite the fact that it prescribed no religious doctrines or opinions, was considered to be one “respecting an establishment of religion” because an ordained Protestant Episcopal minister was considered to have authority from God to issue religious advice to his congregation.
Wheaton argued that President Madison's view of the establishment clause “was not the correct principle.” “In his view the objections made by the President to this bill were altogether futile” and “he did not consider the bill any infringement of the Constitution. If it was, both branches of the Legislature, since the commencement of the government, had been guilty of such infringement. It could not be said, indeed, that they had been guilty of doing much about religion; but they had at every session appointed Chaplains, to be of different denominations, to interchange weekly between the Houses. Now, if a bill for regulating the funds of a religious society could be an infringement of the Constitution, the two Houses had so far infringed it by electing, paying or contracting with their Chaplains. For so far it established two different denominations of religion. Mr. W. deemed this question of very great consequence. Were the people of this District never to have any religion? Was it to be entirely excluded from these ten miles square? He should be afraid to come it that were to be the case. The want of time was no sufficient reason against giving this subject mature consideration. What was done ought to be well done. For these reasons he was in favor of the bill lying on the table.”
President Madison agreed with Representative Wheaton that Congress had established two religions in 1789 by creating the Congressional Chaplainships. The disagreement was whether the Constitution had been infringed by electing, paying or contracting with their Chaplains.
The House of Representatives was of the opinion that President Madison advocated the correct principle and that the Constitution had been infringed by Congress electing, paying or contracting with their Chaplains. It voted 74 to 29 to sustain the President’s veto. Thus, the “No National Church” Interpretation was rejected in favor of the “Total Separation of Religion and Government” interpretation of the President. James Madison was thus installed as the authority on the meaning of the religion clauses.
During the Early Days of the Grand and Glorious Republic it was always James Madison's interpretation of the establishment clause that eventually prevailed in every dispute over its meaning. These early Church State disputes included the following:
Executive Religious Recommendations
James Madison’s view that government religious recommendations were improper prevailed during the Early Years of the Republic. The First U. S. Congress did request the President to issue a religious recommendation to the people but it never claimed that the Constitution granted such power to the President. Furthermore, the President never claimed the Constitution granted such power.
The First Congress did not to issue a religious recommendation to the people in 1790. In 1792 and 1794 attempts to pass a joint resolution requesting the issuance of a executive religious recommendations were defeated.
During the War of 1812, Congress requested President Madison to issue religious recommendations. The President complied. However, issuance of executive religious recommendations was terminated because the “wartime political religious observances under state authority were kept with ”too much of the old leaven of malice and bitterness’”, and the Gospel employed by ministers and politicians “to point political sarcasm and to rekindle partisan rage.”
In 1832, Henry Clay and the other Counterfeit Christians in the Senate took advantage of an impending epidemic and attempted to pass a join resolution requesting President Andrew Jackson to issue a prayer and fasting proclamation. Clay's resolution passed in the Senate but it failed in the House, where Gulian Verplanck of New York closed his famous speech by recommending that Congress "leave prayer to be prompted by the devotion of the heart, and not the bidding of the State."
Congressional Prayer
Contrary to the widespread myth, there were no daily opening prayers in the First U S. Congress. If you know of any evidence of morning prayers in the official records of the First Congress, please tell me where it is.
Article III of the Northwestern Ordinance
There was a dispute over whether Article III of the Northwestern Ordinance obligated the government to support religion in the Ohio Territory. The U. S. Congress believed that it did not and several attempts to enact legislation to "give legal effect" to the “support of the gospel” interpretation of Article III never even made it out of committee.
Sunday Mail Delivery
The Sunday Mail dispute raged from 1810 to the development of the telegraph and railroad train systems. The subject of the controversy was an 1810 post office law that required the transportation and opening of the mail on Sundays. There were numerous attempts by the “Christian Party” to convince Congress to repeal the 1810l law, but they all failed. Representative Colonel Johnson of Kentucky, chairman of the House Post Office Committee, issued a famous report in 1830 that adopted James Madison’s view that religion was exempt from the cognizance of the government. One of the many petitions from citizens supporting the 1810 Post Office law declared that the establishment clause was intended to, “Leave the religion of the people as free as the air they breathe from government influence of any kind.”
Ten Commandment Displays in Federal Courts
The 1789 Judiciary Act did not include a requirement for the display of the Ten Commandments in Federal Courts. I am not convinced that such a suggestion was actually introduced in Congress.
Conclusion
During the Early Years of the Republic (1789 to 1860) there were no disputes over “one Nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, “In God We Trust” on the nations coins or government displays of the Ten Commandments. The Federal Government respected God’s authority over the conscience of men and refrained from using its legislative authority to issue religious advice to the people.
Sources of Information:
Read Laban Wheaton’s argument for the No National Religion interpretation at
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Read the official record of the 74 to 29 vote in 1811 in the House of Representatives in favor of James Madison’s interpretation of the establishment clause at
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Read New York Representative Gulion Verplacnk’s 1832 speech on the subject of Presidential Religious Recommendations at
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Read the 1801 petition citizens and inhabitants of Wayne County, in the Northwest Territory praying for the support of the Gospel and for erecting the buildings necessary for the celebration of divine service.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName...
Read about the 1802 announcement of Senator Uriah Tracy of Connecticut that he would ask leave to bring in a bill the nest day to carry into effect the support for schools and religion in the Northwestern Territory. The official records show that Tracy did not attempt to introduce the bill.
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Read about the 1802 appointment of a House committee to inquire into the matter of support of religion within the Territory of the United States Northwest of the river Ohio. The committee never reported the question to the floor.
http://memory.loc.gov/...
Read about the Bill reported out of committee (but not passed) in 1828 that would have authorized the use of federal land in the State of Ohio for the support of religion.
http://memory.loc.gov/...
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