7. Religious Liberty
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“[Human governments] could not give the rights essential to happiness… We claim them from a higher source – from the King of kings and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives.”
– John Dickinson, Constitution Signer
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BIBLICAL CITIZENSHIP
Inalienable rights are:
“not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”
– Alexander Hamilton, Constitution Signer & coauthor
of the Federalist Papers
“imprinted by the finger of God on the heart of man.”
– Samuel Adams, Signer of the Declaration
“antecedent to all earthly government; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human law; rights derived from the great Legislator of the Universe.”
– John Adams, Signer of the Declaration
WEEK ONE: Religious Liberty
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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . .’1
WEEK ONE: Religious Liberty
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“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals. Therefore, education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man toward God.”4
– Gouverneur Morris, Signer of the Constitution
“Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other.”6
– James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution
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BIBLICAL CITIZENSHIP
“We should be very cautious of violating the rights of conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men and to Him only they are answerable.”
– George Washington
“For what business, in the name of common sense, has the magistrate with our religion? The state does not have any concern in the matter. In what manner does it affect society in what outward form we think it best to pay our adoration to God? The consciences of men are not the objects of human legislation. In contrast with this spiritual tyranny, how beautiful appears our constitution in disclaiming all jurisdiction over the souls of men, securing by a never-to-be-repealed section the voluntary, unchecked moral persuasion of every person by his own self- directed communication with the Father of spirits!”
– William Livingston, Constitution Signer
“Security under our constitution is given to the rights of conscience and private judgment. They are by nature subject to no control but that of Deity, and in that free situation they are now left.”
– John Jay, first Supreme Court Chief Justice
WEEK ONE: Religious Liberty
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… select from all the people able men … to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. – Exodus 18:21
For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and the people should seek the law from his mouth… – Malachi 2:7
“Resistance to sudden violence for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I never surrendered to the public by the compact of society and which, perhaps, I could not surrender if I would.… [T]he maxims of the law and the precepts of Christianity are precisely coincident in relation to this subject.”7
– John Adams, Signer of The Declaration
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BIBLICAL CITIZENSHIP
“[T]o preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them…”
– Richard Henry Lee, Declaration Signer
“Government is instituted to protect property. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own. It is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties or where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.”
– James Madison
THIS WEEK’S BONUS VIDEOS TO WATCH ON YOUR OWN:
- U.S. Const. Amend. I.
- U.S. Const. Art. I, § 5, cl. 3.
- William Parker Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler, Life, Journal, and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler (Cincinnati: Colin Robert Clarke & Co., 1888), Vol. II, p. 66, 119, letter to Joseph Torrey, January 4, 1802. Cutler meant that Jefferson attended church on January 3, 1802, for the first time as President. Bishop Claggett’s letter of February 18, 1801, already revealed that as Vice-President, Jefferson went to church services in the House.
- Jared Sparks, The Life of Governeur Morris (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1832), Vol. III, p. 483, from his “Notes on the Form of a Constitution for France.”
- Constitutions (1813), p. 364, “An Ordinance of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio,” Article III.
- James Wilson, The Works of the Honourable James Wilson, Bird Wilson, editor (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), Vol. I, pp. 104–106, “Of the General Principles of Law and Obligation.”
- John Adams, “On Private Revenge,” Boston Gazette, September 5, 1763.