[Amendment10]

The people have forgotten that the states had the power to address religious issues before they established the federal government and its Constitution. The Founders had shrewdly reserved this power uniquely to the states via the 1st and 10th Amendmets as evidenced by the Jefferson extracts that I have already posted. Here is another Jefferson extract which emphasizes that government power to legislate religion was reserved uniquely to the states.

"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

[TexasJackFlash]

RobbyS wrote:

The people have forgotten that the states had the power to address religious issues before they established the federal government and its Constitution.

I say:

At the founding (the date the Bill of Rights went into effect in 1791), ten of the thirteen states had:

Constitutions or statutes that prohibited the establishment of religion by law (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, North Carolina),

No legal power to establish religion and no establishments of religion by law(New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina),

Questionable authority to establish religion but never attempted to exercise it (Maryland), or

Probably had legitimate authority (*Georgia)but did not exercise it.

*In Georgia, financial support from the government for religion was available, but no church ever applied for it.

[jla]

Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists - The Draft and Recently Discovered Text

Monticello Reports & Research Tools