"Mr. Jefferson afterwards, in reply to an address to him by a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association (8 id. 113), took occasion to say: 'Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions,-I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State...Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into practice?
Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? [98 U.S. 145, 167] To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances..."
REYNOLDS v. U.S., 98 U.S. 145 (1878) 98 U.S. 145
Would this then apply to all the changes we are making to accommodate Muslims?
Thank you, but I don't concern myself with the Reynolds case. This is because Utah was a territory at the time, not a state. So while it can be argued that judges were trying to tamper with our religious freedoms, Reynolds wasn't a 10th Amendment issue. But I'd like to hear your thoughts about my stance on Reynolds if you have some.
As a side note, Black referred to Reynolds in Everson, carelessly implying that Utah was a state, in my opinion. Not only is this another example of Black rewriting history but it gave momentum to his distortions of the establishment clause and the 14th A.