What they wrote versus what they meant

Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (in which he states that the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise clauses had built “a wall of separation between church and State”) has been made at least as famous by its modern critics than its supporters.

The critics argue that there is no “wall of separation,” and that the statement was simply Jefferson’s personal opinion. Here’s what both sides seem to agree that he said:

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 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.

Madison shared a similar opinion:

Notwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Govt. & Religion neither can be duly supported. Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst. And in a Govt. of opinion, like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

While the opinions of the founders about the Constitution’s meaning are of course not in the Constitution, nor are they “part of” the Constitution in a technical sense, when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, doesn’t what they said shed at least some light on the intent of the founders?

The way the Danbury letter is cited, you’d think it was evidence of nothing.

Earlier I was accused of subscribing to a “leftist interpretation” of the Constitution when I quoted Article VI, paragraph 3:

…no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Except I wasn’t interpreting; I was quoting the above in response to another friend’s comment that “godless heathens” had taken over the money supply and that we need to return control to Christians.  (Presumably the latter would be defined to exclude members of certain heretical sects like the Episcopal Church.)

Whether Ben Bernanke and company are in fact “godless heathens” I do not know. My point was simply that the Constitution prevents people like him from being subjected to religious inquiries as a condition of holding office. I later opined that I don’t think “godless heathens” can be barred from holding public office, nor can Christians. Similarly, neither status could be made a requirement.

This prompted a lengthy and pointless debate with endless unverifiable quotes purporting to come from the founders. Like this one:

James Madison4th U.S. President

“Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.”–America’s Providential History, p. 93.

That doesn’t sound like something Madison would say. But it is also variously attributed to Princeton President John Witherspoon as well as John Dickinson. As Witherspoon was one of Jefferson’s teachers, and the quote appears in books like this one by evangelist D. James Kennedy, I can see how it might be possible to conflate the two. But quotes purporting to be from founders are a real pain in the ass, because they are often tough to verify, and unless they specifically refer to the Constitution, really are not controlling on the intent of the people who wrote it. For example, I can easily imagine that anyone who believed in the “cursed” nature of “learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ” might still favor separation of church and state lest someone with different religious views end up in charge.

But what about that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” phrase. According to the logic of some of my commenters, not allowing a religious test might be seen as imposing a religious test. Because it imposes on those who want to impose religious tests, because preventing an imposition is an imposition and so on.

You’d think I would have learned that arguments cannot be won, so it is best not to have them.