Posted on 08/26/2006 7:03:38 PM PDT by Amendment10
"3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people..." --Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. http://tinyurl.com/oozoo
1st Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
(Excerpt) Read more at princeton.edu ...
I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others. (James Madison - Letter Rev. Jasper Adams, Spring 1832).
"our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own"
"length-limited posts"? Read some of the threads here. The original poster often follows up with a reply that is pages long, in order to elaborate on his thoughts.
Thank you that note. I had wrongly presumed that posts would be limited because the initial post in a thread is limited. Fortunately, subsequent posts don't have an obvious limit.
"What he wanted expunged was civil authority over the things of God, such as the illegally assumed Presidential authority to issue religious recommendations."
You still need to make a distinction between federal and state governments where civil authority is concerned as Jefferson did. The problem is that the people have forgotten that the Founders wrote the 1st and 10th Amendments in part to reserve government power to address religious issues uniquely to the state governments. Secular judges are consequently walking all over our religious freedoms because of this ignorance concerning the 10th A.
"Jefferson was concerned about the rights of conscience being violated by any level of government. I bet that if he had possessed the legal authority under the national charter, he would have destroyed the religious establishments in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire as well as the few religious tests and civil rights disabilities that were still around when he was President."
You must be daydreaming about the "Hollywood" Jefferson who is regarded as a hero of atheists. Jefferson's Bill for Religious Freedom shows that Jefferson actually used state government power to address religious issues to respect all establishment of religion.
Some of these liberaltarians forget, it is THEY who advocate “separation of church and state.” Let's cram it right back down their throats...
It was landmark U.S. Supreme Court precedent Reynolds v. United States in 1878 that made “separation of church and state” a dubiously legitimate point of case law, but more importantly; it confirmed the Constitutionality in statutory regulation of marriage practices.
Now, it ain't so palatable to them, is it? They are the ones here bashing the religious folks, now they want to claim some mercurial, ever changing definition of freedom of religion? I'm not going to live in their hell...
If I cannot yell “fire” in a crowded theater, I don't think someone should be able to light one with a U.S. flag and call it “free speech.”
Of course, a lot of these traitors to the United States would also whine if we wanted an Amendment to ban homosexual marriage or flag burning, wouldn't they?
There are doctrinaire, myopic cultural Marxists whose only purpose here on FreeRepublic is their polemic need to do anything contrary to the Christians. You will find most of them on the homosexual issue threads, the evolution threads, drug threads, genetic engineering threads or any other issue involving a perversion of, or attack on the Judaic book of Genesis.
The very idea that human beings have individual rights not subject to the whims of an earthly monarch, but subject to the laws of Yahweh, is directly from Moses.
Historically, this is proven over and over again with the successive conflicts between the forces of paganism and the Judaic culture. (This includes the idolatry of cultural Marxist paganism.)
A greater number of "atheists" and "pagans" adopt the same hackneyed tenets of a faux Judaic-Christian ideal (golden calf). They also subscribe to the Judaic fetishism of "sin," but will fight to their death in denial of it.
Most of them are so wrapped up in their own polemics that they have become nothing more than pathetic anti-Christians with the same false hypocritical philosophy. They just slap a new label on it hoping nobody will notice - - they replace the idea of "avoiding sin" with "morals."
Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior. Today, "morals" are a religious pagan philosophy of esoteric hobgoblins. Transfiguration is a pantheon of fantasies as the medium of infinitization. Others get derision for having an unwavering Judaic belief in Yahweh or Yeshua, although their critics and enemies will evangelize insertion of phantasmagoric fetishisms into secular law.
Mosaic Law (of which the Ten Commandments is just a part) is the foundation of Western Civilization. Genesis is the primary focus of the Declaration of Independence, from where our Constitutional rights are derived. The Ten Commandments are the foundation of our judicial system.
Moses wrote Genesis. This is why such people will jump up and down screaming when the Ten Commandments are displayed or the Creationist idea of monogamy from the book of Genesis is introduced.
Good post.
"You're wrong about Jefferson's "Bill for Religious Rights", it was in fact a warning to the people that aloowing religion and government to conjoin would in fact corrupt both."
The extract from Jefferson's Bill for Religious Freedom that you posted is difficult to read. But I think that Jefferson is actually referencing Clause 3 of Article VI of the Constitution which prohibits religous tests for government officials. Jefferson also seems to be reflecting disdain for the common law system where judges make the law as well as decide cases.
The bottom line is that I question your self-honesty with respect to reading things objectively, particularly when something is difficult to read in the first place. The fact that your "Hollywood" Jefferson probably wasn't warning about keeping religious and state government powers separate is evidenced by Jefferson's letter to Rev. Samuel Miller. Given this letter shows that President Jefferson "passed the buck" for official government recognition of a national religious holiday, "Fasting and Prayer" I believe, from the federal government to the state governments, your idea that Jefferson meant to warn against cojoining religious and government powers doesn't hold water, particularly with respect to the state governments.
"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. 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." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. http://tinyurl.com/nkdu7
Jefferson also reflected on the 10th A. powers of the states to address religious issues by noting that the states were trusted with the care of our religious freedoms.
"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons, our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262 http://tinyurl.com/onx4j
You extracts fail to consider what the initial post in this thread pointed out. You are ignoring the that the Founders made major distinctions between certain powers of the federal and state governments. You have fallen into the trap of thinking that the popular term "the government" is synonymous with both federal and state governments and that "separation of church and state" means separation for the state governments as well as the federal government. But the ignorance of this idea is exposed when you consider Jefferson's note that the Founders had written the 1st and 10th Amendments in part to delegate government power to address religious issues uniquely to the state governments.
"3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people..." --Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. http://tinyurl.com/oozoo
1st Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So based on Jefferson's note about the 1st and 10th Amendments, the states have the constitutional power (10th) to authorize public schools to lead non-mandatory (14th) classroom discussions on the pros and cons of evolution, creationism and irreducible complexity, for example, regardless that atheists, separatists, secular judges and the liberal media are misleading the people to think that doing such things in public schools is unconstitutional.
You are ignoring that the Founders made major distinctions between certain powers of the federal and state governments. You are ignoring that Jefferson himself acknowledged that the Founders wrote the 1st and 10th Amendments in part to delegate government power to address religious issues uniquely to the state governments.
"3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people..." --Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. http://tinyurl.com/oozoo
1st Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So based on Jefferson's note about the 1st and 10th Amendments, the states have the constitutional power (10th) to authorize public schools to lead non-mandatory (14th) classroom discussions on the pros and cons of evolution, creationism and irreducible complexity, for example, regardless that atheists, separatists, secular judges and the liberal media are misleading the people to think that doing such things in public schools is unconstitutional.
No disrespect intended towards the chaplain, but he was wrong. TJ had disavowed himself from the "Jacobins" long before he was elected POTUS, though he and the republicans were continually, and disingenuously, referred to as such by Hamilton and his allies.
The fact is, Mr J pronounced, not long after being elected as Adams' Vice-President, (France sought to influence the election that year in favor of TJ as POTUS, much to the latter's disapproval), that if America's union (of states) failed our nation's demise would be certain. And he further stated his opinion that America retain a policy of neutrality towards all nations, and went so far as adding that America should stay completely out of others nations affairs, commerce being the exception.
This all came with a proviso though, in that other nations must accept America's sovereign status. (Britain at this point in time did not).
In summation, Bishop Claggett was clearly mistaken.
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