The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First AmendmentIs government forbidden to assist all religions equally, as the Supreme Court has held? Or does the First Amendment merely ban exclusive aid to one religion, as critics of the Court assert? The First Freedoms studies the church-state context of colonial and revolutionary America to present a bold new reading of the historical meaning of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Synthesizing and interpreting a wealth of evidence from the founding of Virginia to the passage of the Bill of Rights, including everything published in America before 1791, Thomas Curry traces America's developing ideas on religious liberty and offers the most extensive investigation ever of the historical origins and background of the First Amendment's religion clauses. |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Church and State in SeventeenthCentury Virginia and Maryland | 29 |
3 Church and State in the Restoration Colonies | 54 |
4 Liberty of Conscience in EighteenthCentury Colonial America | 78 |
5 Establishment of Religion in Colonial America | 105 |
The Southern States | 134 |
The Middle States and New England | 159 |
8 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof | 193 |
Notes | 223 |
Index | 269 |
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Common terms and phrases
Act of Toleration amendment Anglican Church Anglican establishment Anglican ministers Article Assembly assessment Baltimore Baltimore's Baptists believed Bill of Rights bishops Boston Cambridge Catholics Charles Chauncy charter Christian Church of England Church-State relations civil clergy colonial America colony's Congregational Congregationalism Congregationalists Congress Connecticut constitution controversy Cotton Mather County Court declared denominations dispute Documentary History eighteenth century England Dissent English estab established church establishment of religion excluded federal free exercise governor Increase Mather inhabitants Isaac Backus James Jersey Jesuits John John Leland legislature liberty of conscience lishment London Madison magistrate Maryland Archives Massachusetts matters McLoughlin ment Ministry North Carolina officeholding opponents Pennsylvania Perry Philadelphia preached Presbyterians proposed Protestant Province Puritan Quakers religious freedom religious liberty Religious Petitions Revolution Rhode Island rights of conscience Rulers Samuel sect Society statute support of religion taxes Thomas tion toleration towns violated Virginia vols William worship wrote York
Popular passages
Page 207 - establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.
Page 200 - an establishment of religion" may have been intended by Congress to be aimed only at a state church. When the First Amendment was pending in Congress in substantially its present form, "Mr. Madison said, he apprehended the meaning of the words to be, that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience.
Page 200 - Carroll—As the rights of conscience are, in their nature, of peculiar delicacy, and will little bear the gentlest touch of governmental hand; and as many sects have concurred in opinion that they are not well secured under the present Constitution, he said he was much in favor of adopting the words.
Page 240 - Majesties protestant subjects dissenting from the church of England from the penalties of certain laws...
Page 213 - Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last, in the career of intolerance.
Page 163 - It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the SUPREME BEING, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe.
Page 39 - Declared and sett forth) that noe person or persons whatsoever within this Province, or the Islands, Ports, Harbors, Creekes, or havens thereunto belonging professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth bee any waies troubled, Molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion...