*** 3. U.S. Constitution to War Between the States (1787 to 1865)***

Constitution of the State of New Hampshire (1784,1792), required senators and representatives to be of the:

 Protestant religion.  (in force until 1877)

The Constitution stipulated:

 Article I, Section VI.  And every denomination of Christians demeaning themselves quietly, and as good citizens of the state, shall be equally under the protection of the laws.  And no subordination 

of any one sect of denomination to another, shall ever be established by law. [p.469]

The Constitution of the State of Delaware (until 1792) stated:

 Article XXII  Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust… shall… make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: “I, _______, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forevermore; I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.”  [p.203]

Constitution of the State of Tennessee (1796), stated:

 Article VIII, Section II.  No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State.  [pp.580-581]

John Jay (1745-1829), was the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, having been appointed by President George Washington. He was a Founding Father, a member of the First and Second Continental Congresses… He was very instrumental in causing the Constitution to be ratified by writing the Federalist Papers, along with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.

On October 12, 1816, John Jay admonished:

 Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.  [p.318]  [emphasis added]

Constitution of the State of Mississippi (1817), stated:

 No person who denies the being of God or a future state of rewards and punishments shall hold any office in the civil department of the State.  [p.451]

The Constitution of the State of Connecticut (until 1818), contained the wording:

 The People of this State… by the Providence of God… hath the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State… and forasmuch as the free fruition of such liberties and privileges as humanity, civility, and Christianity call for, as is due to every man in his place and proportion… hath ever been, and will be the tranquility and stability of Churches and Commonwealth; and the denial thereof, the disturbances, if not the ruin of both.  [p.179]

Congress of the United States of America (1822), ratified in both the House and Senate of the United States, along with Great Britain and Ireland, the Convention for Indemnity under Award of Emperor of Russia as to the True Construction of the First Article of the Treaty of December 24, 1814. It begins with these words:

 In the name of the Most Holy and Indivisible Trinity.  [pp.167-168]

Definition of RELIGION.

RELIGION. Includes a belief in the being and perfections of God, in the revelation of his will to man, and in man’s obligation to obey his commands, in a state of reward and punishment, and in man’s accountableness to God; and also true godliness or piety of life, with the practice of all moral duties… the practice of moral duties without a belief in a divine lawgiver, and without reference to his will or commands, is not religion. [Webster’s 1828 Dictionary]

Note: David Barton states, “Our current understanding of what constitutes a religious test was considerably different from that of early Americans, as demonstrated by this excerpt from the 1796 Tennessee constitution:”

            Article VIII, Section II. No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State. 

            Article XI, Section IV. That no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this state.

       “A fixed set of religious beliefs for an office holder is prescribed in Article VIII, and then a religious test is prohibited in Article XI.  Obviously, in their view, requiring a belief in God and in future rewards and punishments was not a religious test.

       “… Prescribing a requirement professing ‘I, ________, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration [DELAWARE, 1776]’ was not considered a religious test.”

       [The Myth of Separation, David Barton, Wallbuilder Press, 1991]

Constitution of the State of North Carolina (1776), stated:

 There shall be no establishment of any one religious church or denomination in this State in preference to any other.

 Article XXXII  That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.  (until 1876)

In 1835 the word “Protestant” was changed to “Christian.” [p.482]

Congress of the United States of America (January 19, 1853), as part of a Congressional investigation, records the report of Mr. Badger of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

 The [First Amendment] clause speaks of “an establishment of religion.” What is meant by that expression? It referred, without doubt, to that establishment which existed in the mother-country… 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         endowment at the public expense, peculiar privileges to its members, or disadvantages or penalties upon those who should reject its doctrines or belong to other communities,-- such law would be a “law respecting an establishment of religion…”

 They intended, by this amendment, to prohibit “an establishment of religion” such as the English Church presented, or any thing like it. But they had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people…

 They did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistic apathy. Not so had the battles of the Revolution been fought and the deliberations of the Revolutionary Congress been conducted.

 In the law, Sunday is a “dies non,”… The executive departments, the public establishments, are all closed on Sundays; on that day neither House of Congress sits…

 Sunday, the Christian Sabbath [sic], recognized and respected by all the departments of the Government…

 Here is a recognition by law, and by universal usage, not only of a Sabbath, but of the Christian Sabbath [sic], in exclusion of the Jewish or Mohammedan Sabbath… the recognition of the Christian Sabbath [sic] [by the Constitution] is complete and perfect.

 We are a Christian people… not because the law demands it, not to gain exclusive benefits or to avoid legal disabilities, but from choice and education; and in a land thus universally Christian, what is to be expected, what desired, but that we shall pay due regard to Christianity.  [pp.168-169]

Congress of the United States of America (March 27, 1854), receives the report of Mr. Meacham of the House Committee on the Judiciary:

 What is an establishment of religion? It must have a creed, defining what a man must believe; it must have rites and ordinances, which believers must observe; it must have ministers of defined qualification, to teach the doctrines and administer the rites; it must have tests for the submissive and penalties for the non-conformist.  There never was as established religion without all these…

 At the adoption of the Constitution… every State… provided as regularly for the support of the Church as for the support of the Government… [emphasis added]
 Down to the Revolution, every colony did sustain religion in some form. It was deemed peculiarly proper that the religion of liberty should be upheld by a free people.

 Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle.  [emphasis added]

 At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect [denomination]. Any attempt to level and discard all religion would have been viewed with universal indignation. The object was not to substitute Judaism or Mohammedism, or infidelity, but to prevent rivalry among the [Christian] sects to the exclusion of others.  [emphasis added]

 It [Christianity] must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests. Laws will not have permanence or power without the sanction of religious sentiment, --  without a firm belief that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues and punish our vices.  [emphasis added]

 In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity; that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions.  That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.  There is a great and very prevalent error on this subject in the opinion that those who organized this Government did not legislate on religion. [emphasis added]  [pp.169-170]

Congress of the United States of America (May 1854), passed a resolution in the House which declared:

 The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  [emphasis added]  [p.170]

The Constitution of the State of Massachusetts (through 1862) included:

 The right of the people of this commonwealth to… invest their Legislature with power to authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies-politic or religious societies to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntary.  [pp.429-430]

Congress of the United States of America (March 3, 1863), passed this resolution in the United States Senate:

 Resolved, That devoutly recognizing the supreme authority and just government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and nations, and sincerely believing that no people, however great in numbers and resources, or however strong in the justness of their cause, can prosper without His favor, and at the same time deploring the national offenses which have provoked His reighteous judgment, yet encouraged in this day of trouble by the assurance of His Word, to seek Him for succor according to His appointed way, through Jesus Christ, the Senate of the United States does hereby request the President of the United States, by his proclamation, to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation.