[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 101 (Tuesday, June 20, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1291]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



[[Page E 1291]]

                 THE TRUE INTENT OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT

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                     HON. JAMES H. (JIMMY) QUILLEN

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, June 16, 1995
  Mr. QUILLEN. Mr. Speaker, my good friend and constituent W.W. Belew, 
of Bristol, TN, is a prominent businessman and an inspiration to his 
community and church. Bill kindly sent me a copy of the following 
article from Reader's Digest that I believe every Member of Congress 
should read. We have just finished the season when high schools around 
the Nation hold their annual graduation exercises, and students 
everywhere were again denied their rights to include religious 
references at this important time in their lives. The reason for this 
is the unfortunate and harmful decision of our judicial system to take 
religion entirely out of any public enterprise. I believe that this 
decision is wrong, and the article sent to me by Mr. Belew clearly 
states why. I look forward to being able to vote for a constitutional 
school prayer amendment soon to rectify this situation, and I am 
hopeful that my colleagues will join me in this endeavor.
                 [From the Reader's Digest, Dec. 1994]

               The Supreme Court is Wrong About Religion

                         (By M. Stanton Evans)

       A rabbi prays at a Rhode Island high-school graduation 
     ceremony. This brings a lawsuit, and a court prohibits 
     invocations at such ceremonies. In Morrow, Ga., a school-
     board attorney advises a class officer to delete reference to 
     God from her commencement remarks--because it is 
     unconstitutional. A federal judge abolishes the Good Friday 
     holiday in Illinois public schools.
       Over three decades ago the Supreme Court declared that 
     prayer in the public schools was unconstitutional--a 
     violation of the First Amendment, which states that 
     ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
     religion.'' Since then traditional religious beliefs and 
     customs have retreated before a secular onslaught by our 
     courts.
       Was the First Amendment really intended to build a ``wall 
     of separation'' between church and state? History is clear: 
     it was not. The Founding Fathers wanted to protect religion 
     from federal-government interference, not diminish its 
     influence in our public life.
       What were the religious convictions of the framers?
       Some historians, as well as members of the Supreme Court, 
     have implied that the Founding Fathers were religious 
     skeptics. In fact, the vast majority of those who gathered in 
     Philadelphia to create the Constitution were church-going 
     believers.
       They included Presbyterian Hugh
        Williamson, a former preacher from North Carolina; Roman 
     Catholics such as Daniel Carroll of Maryland; Quakers John 
     Dickinson of Delaware and Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania.
       Ben Franklin asserted, ``The longer I live, the more 
     convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs in 
     the affairs of men.'' George Washington, for his part, had 
     urged his troops ``to live and act as becomes a Christian 
     soldier,'' and wrote in his Farewell Address that ``reason 
     and experience both forbid us to expect that national 
     morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.''
       What were the public customs at the time of the First 
     Amendment?
       The providence of God was openly and officially 
     acknowledged. Most states had religious requirements to hold 
     office. South Carolina, for instance, said no one was 
     eligible for the legislature ``unless he be of the Protestant 
     Religion.''
       The term ``establishment of religion'' had a definite, 
     agreed-upon meaning: an official church, vested with 
     privileges denied other churches and supported by the public 
     treasury. Such was the Church of England in Great Britain--
     and churches in nine of the 13 Colonies at the outset of the 
     American Revolution.
       Because of growing religious diversity, however, pressure 
     mounted within the Colonies to disestablish these churches. 
     In 1785, James Madison co-sponsored a bill in Virginia to 
     disestablish the Protestant Episcopal Church and prohibit 
     taxes from being used to support any church. He did not act 
     out of animosity to religion, but mainly at the request of 
     other denominations who felt unfairly treated. Nor did he 
     intend to erect a ``wall of separation'' between church and 
     state: on the same day, he introduced a bill ``for appointing 
     days of public fasting and thanksgiving.''
       What was the federal policy?
       Religious belief was officially sanctioned. Days of prayer 
     and appeals for divine assistance were common. The 
     Continental Congress appointed a chaplain and provided for an 
     opening prayer as one of its first items of business.
       When the Continental Congress passed the Northwest 
     Ordinance, governing territories beyond the Ohio River, one 
     of its goals was the promotion of religion. One lot in each 
     parcel of land in the territories was to be ``given 
     perpetually for the purposes of religion.'' And in 1780, in 
     the midst of Revolutionary conflict, the Congress also took 
     steps to print an American Bible, as the supply from England 
     had been cut off.
       How was the First Amendment written?
       After his election to the House of Representatives, Madison 
     proposed a Bill of Rights on June 8, 1789. It assured that 
     ``the civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of 
     religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion 
     be established.''
       In debating the bill the House made it clear that its 
     objective was to prevent Congress from establishing a 
     ``national'' religion that would threaten the religious 
     prerogatives of the states.
       The specific First Amendment language adopted--``Congress 
     shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion''--
     was worked out by a six-man committee, including two members 
     of Connecticut's state-established Congregational Church. The 
     meaning was clear. Congress was forbidden to legislate for or 
     against church establishments. It could neither set up a 
     national church, nor interfere with the established churches 
     in the states.
       Official support for religion persisted well after adoption 
     of the First Amendment. The established church of 
     Massachusetts, for example, lasted until 1833, when it was 
     abolished by the state itself, not the Supreme Court.
       In recent times, the Supreme Court has ``applied'' the 
     First Amendment's establishment clause to the states. Thus, 
     what was once prohibited only to the Congress is now also 
     prohibited to the states. Yet even if this approach is valid, 
     it hardly warrants banishing religion from public life.
       The Court has prohibited prayer in state-sponsored schools, 
     yet Congress itself has engaged in officially sponsored, tax-
     supported prayer, complete with paid official chaplains, from 
     the very outset. The day after the House approved the First 
     Amendment's establishment clause, September 25, 1789, it 
     called for a day of national prayer and thanksgiving--the 
     precursor to our present national holiday.
       President Washington said: ``It is the duty of all nations 
     to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His 
     will, to be grateful for His benefits and humbly to implore 
     His protection and favor.''
       The Supreme Court's term ``wall of separation'' comes from 
     a letter Jefferson wrote to Baptist officials in Danbury, 
     Conn. In it, he affirmed his view that establishing or 
     disestablishing a church was not a question for the federal 
     government. In his second inaugural address, Jefferson stated 
     that in matters of religion, he had ``left them, as the 
     Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline 
     of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several 
     religious societies.''
       Later, Jefferson told a clergyman that his views were based 
     on the states' rights Tenth Amendment as well as on the 
     First: ``Certainly no power to prescribe any religious 
     exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has 
     been delegated to the general government. It must then rest 
     with the states as far as it can be in any human authority.''
       The conclusion seems irresistible: that no wall of 
     separation between religious affirmation and civil government 
     was intended by the First Amendment. The wall of separation 
     was between the federal government and the states.
       The Constitution, including the First Amendment, was the 
     work of believers in God who expressed their faith through 
     public prayer. We have come to a day when a child's mention 
     of God in a graduation address or the presence of a Nativity 
     scene in a public place triggers threats of legal action. 
     This is a gross distortion of our Constitutional history and 
     a dishonor to our Founders.
     

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