Indeed, tpaine -- they had seen enuf of "the divine right of kings." The DoI is full of complaints against royal privilege/abuse. Which is why, in our system, the people are nominally sovereign not, say, the president.
Thanks for the great essay/post! Not much to disagree with there! (Are you surprised? :^) )
Thanks Betty. - Your honesty doesn't surprise me, but I'm always amazed at how many disagree with the base principles behind our establishment/religious test clauses. [again, agreeing that prohibitionists have abused those clauses]
Yes indeedy, they sure have! Their favorite maneuver generally takes the form of focusing on the establishment clause only, then ignoring the second clause wherein Congress is forbidden to prohibit "the free exercise thereof."
Notice that, in the enumeration of restrictions on federal government power that makes up the Bill of Rights, religious liberty is the very first liberty guaranteed by the very First Amendment -- which gives religious liberty precedence even over free speech (press freedom), assembly, and petition for redress. Clearly, the Framers must have thought religious liberty (the right of conscience) of preeminent importance -- even though these same men would prohibit "religious tests" for federal public office in the main body of the Constitution.
At the same time, however, all federal oaths of office require the candidate to "swear (or affirm)" his allegience to the Constitution before assuming his public duties. Always -- at least until the coming of Ralph Ellison, who demanded a Koran be made available to him for the purpose of his Oath (an unfortunate accommodation, IMHO, for it put a government institution in the position of discriminating/referee-ing among religious creeds) -- a Bible is involved for the purpose of the Oath.... This instantly tells us that JudeoChristian moral law is the foundation and touchstone of our system of justice.
I mean, we don't ask public officers to swear on Marvel comics, or The DaVinci Code! This fact ought to moot the issue of whether the Ten Commandments should be removed from court houses (particularly the Supreme Court) and other public venues; or that "In God we trust" be removed from our currency; or the "under God" provision from the Pledge of Allegience....
The two -- federal government recognition of religious freedom and no religious tests for federal office -- are not in conflict: Both are reconciled in the idea that the federal government may not favor any particular religious creed over any other, but that religion in general is to be free to flourish.
IOW, Institutionally, the government is not in the religion business: It must remain neutral in the religious sphere. Culturally, however, the Constitution draws on the cultural heritage that was formulated in Athens and Jerusalem (and also Rome and London, as Russell Kirk has noted in The Roots of American Order -- a great read).
The Framers were very wise and very judicious in the reconciliation they thus achieved -- freedom for religious belief without any meddling or favoritism WRT religious matters by the government. This was the understanding that they deliberately enshrined in the Constitution.
The so-called "wall of separation" between church and state is an illusion in the fevered brains of Left-progressive, positivist judicial theoreticians. It has no real Constitutional basis.