The Founding Fathers (warning: quotes are not taken out of context) | Page 3 | TigerFan.com

saltyone · Dec 21, 2005

JAMES MADISON

Madison is often referred to as "the Father of the Consititution" because, from the very beginning of the Constitutional Convention, he was a guiding influence and a strong voice of principled reason. In his political career, which spanned more than fifty years, Madison was a stalwart defender of religious liberties. He frequently wrote that the Christian faith was solid enough doctrinally, theologically, morally, and intellectually that it did not need the support of civil government. In fact, he wrote in Memorial and Remonstrance that if civil government were necessary to prop up Christianity, then it would prove that the Christian Faith could not stand on its own merits. Because Christianity thrives in the absence of civil control and government intervention in religious affairs always served, historically, to weaken it, it should be kept separate from the institution of civil government. Incredibly, this "separation" is often misinterpreted as "anti-Christianity" when it should be more properly read as "anti-government".

Some historical background would be helpful at this point. Madison had a dispute with Patrick Henry over Henry's proposal to levy a tax to support teachers of the Christian Religion. In 1785 Madison wrote Memorial and Remonstrance in which he makes the case for keeping Christianity free from intanglement with the state. He saw very clearly that religious "liberty" would be compromised if placed under the dominion of the state. "It was because Madison exalted religion that he favored religious liberty. Since he revered the Christian religion above all others, he wanted it to flourish in its purity, free from the corruption that inevitably came with state support."
Madison's Christian influence is understandable in light of his upbringing and education. He was raised in a strong Episcopalian home where both parents were active in the church. He went to the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) which was then a very orthodox, conservative Christian school. The president of the college was the Rev. John Witherspoon (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence) who recognized in Madison a bright and attentive pupil. We know a great deal of Witherspoon's beliefs-- the influence that he had during this time was tremendous. "Witherspoon was president of the College of New Jersey from 1768 to 1794. In those twenty six years 478 young men graduated--about eighteen students per year. Of those478 graduates, 114 became ministers; 13 were state governors; 3 were Supreme Court judges; 20 were United States Senators; 33 were U.S. Congressmen; Aaron Burr Jr. became Vice President; and James Madison became President."
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http://www.lawandliberty.org/founders.htm

saltyone · Dec 21, 2005

The early years

Jamestown

Here is where our nation began our Christian roots . Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in America. One of the first acts of Captain John Smith and his soldiers after they landed in Virginia in April of 1607 was to erect a wooden cross on the shore at Cape Henry. It was at the foot of this cross that Reverend Robert Hunt led the one-hundred and forty-nine men of the Virginia company in public prayer, thanking God for their safe journey, and recommitting themselves to God's plan and purpose for this new world.
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Plymouth Rock

In 1620 the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock "Massachusetts". They were coming to America to shake loose from the bonds of the church of England so they could worship God as they believed scriptures taught. One group of Puritans, the Separatists, were not willing to support the Church of England in any way. They believed the Church could only be under the headship of Christ, not the queen or king. A great many number of Separatist congregations arose throughout England as groups of believers made compacts with each other to worship God according to biblical truth.

The Pilgrims negotiated with some merchants for ships, one being the Mayflower.

They were determined to cross the ocean to America, where they could worship God.

An to spread the word, the Gospel of The Lord Jesus Christ.

From the beginning, Christians in Europe viewed the New World as a place for religious freedom and a haven and an opportunity to spread the Gospel. One can clear see in their and our earliest legal documents, that they reflect, their commitment to Christ and their mission.
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Mayflower Compact - [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]
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"In the presence of God, Amen. We...do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves into a civil body politic............."[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]
[/FONT][/FONT]"For as much as it has pleased the almighty God by the wise disposition of His Divine Providence"[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]
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America repent of your sins, and give all the thanks and all the blessings to Our Lord God in Heaven.
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http://www.retakingamerica.com/great_america_nation_001.html

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Rex · Dec 22, 2005

We've been through this all before, quotation by quotation. Some of them are outright falsehoods. Some of them are not by founders. Some of them are irrelevant to the Constitution. Some of them are opinions that got outvoted at the Constitutional Convention. NONE of them prove your point. And you have the nerve to talk about "context".

What absolutely obliterates your case is the very first treaty this nation entered into under its Constitution, read aloud and ratified by the entire Senate, unanimously, without objection, and signed into law by President Adams.

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;

End of debate. Your side loses.

saltyone · Dec 22, 2005

Rex said:

We've been through this all before, quotation by quotation. Some of them are outright falsehoods. Some of them are not by founders. Some of them are irrelevant to the Constitution. Some of them are opinions that got outvoted at the Constitutional Convention. NONE of them prove your point. And you have the nerve to talk about "context".

What absolutely obliterates your case is the very first treaty this nation entered into under its Constitution, read aloud and ratified by the entire Senate, unanimously, without objection, and signed into law by President Adams.

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;

End of debate. Your side loses.
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And just like in past debates about this subject with you rex, I will state that the above statement you quoted is true.

We were not "founded" on the Christian religion, we were inspired by the Christian religion. That is exactly what I told you last time. The treaty was an act of diplomacy and the statement in no way takes away from the Christian spirit of our nation.

How can you say that any are falsehoods? They are all quotes, not pieced together to force a meaning from them, but direct quotes. There are so many examples from so many people that I see no way for someone to try and dispute them. As far as some not being founders. All were instrumental in the formation of this country. They might not have all been signers of the Constitution or other documents, but all played an important role.

saltyone · Dec 22, 2005

Separation of Church and State

In 1947, the case of Everson v Board of Education of Ewing Township dealt with New Jersey's subsidizing transportation for students attending parochial schools. Although the Supreme Court ruled in the state's behalf and favored a broad interpretation of the Establishment Clause, in the same decision the Court adopted a flawed interpretation of the statement in Thomas Jefferson's letter that the Establishment Clause was intended to erect "a wall of separation between church and state."

With that statement as his justification, Justice Hugo Black construed the First Amendment in a more restrictive fashion, giving an absolute definition of the First Amendment Establishment Clause which went well beyond the original intent of the framers of the United States Constitution and paved the way for future cases that would further restrict religious expression in American public life. This ruling declares that any aid or benefit to religion from governmental actions is unconstitutional.

Actually, ACLU lawyer Leo Pfeffer wrote the decision for the Everson case inserting the words, "separation of church and state." Hugo Black ran it up the flagpole. The Court was divided 4-4. Black also voted for it, and so it became a part of our law. One man, led by the ACLU, gave it to us - not in 1789, but in 1947, and ever since then the ACLU has been taking this brickbat they created and beating Christians into the ground with it........
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http://www.straight-talk.net/socas/s-badjudgments.shtml

saltyone · Dec 22, 2005

This one is just to easy.

"Jefferson Bible"

Some sources cite the so-called "Jefferson Bible" as evidence that Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian, but rather a Deist or, at best, a Unitarian.

In this volume, published in 1820, Jefferson used excerpts from the New Testaments in four languages to create parallel columns of text recounting the life of Jesus, preserving what he considered to be Christ's authentic actions and statements, eliminating the mysterious and miraculous. He began his account with Luke's second chapter, deleting the first in which the angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would give birth to the Messiah by the Holy Spirit. ... Jefferson deleted the part of the birth story in which the angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds. The text ends with the crucifixion and burial and omits any resurrection appearance.

However ... "Jefferson's own words explained that his intent for that book was not for it to be a "Bible," but rather for it to be a primer for the Indians on the teachings of Christ (which is why Jefferson titled that work, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth"). What Jefferson did was to take the "red letter" portions of the New Testament and publish these teachings in order to introduce the Indians to Christian morality. And as President of the United States, Jefferson negotiated treaties with the Kaskaskia, Cherokee, and Wyandotte tribes wherein he provided-at the government's expense-Christian missionaries to the Indians. In fact, Jefferson himself declared, "I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." While many might question this claim, the fact remains that Jefferson called himself a Christian, not a deist.
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http://www.straight-talk.net/heritage/h-jbible.shtml

Take a look at this link to see how the enemies of Christianity are misusing this book to promote their own agenda.

http://www.loveallpeople.org/jeffersonbible.html

Simply put, Jefferson's book was meant to be a guide for morality based soley on the life of Jesus Christ whose life he saw as the best example of morality. The reason he removed the miracles and other supernatural feats was because of it's intended use. It was meant for the Indian tribes and he knew that by leaving those things in it would only confuse them. This book is taken out of context more than just about anything else when trying to prove that Jefferson was not a Christian.

red55 · Dec 22, 2005

James Madison on the separation of church and state

Madison's summary of the First Amendment:

Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform (Annals of Congress, Sat Aug 15th, 1789 pages 730 - 731).

Direct references to separation:

The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State (Letter to Robert Walsh, Mar. 2, 1819).

Against establishment of religion

The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity (Letter to F.L. Schaeffer, Dec 3, 1821).
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Thomas Jeffersons Views on the subject

Constitution gives no power over religion to the federal government:

Believing 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 (Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1802).

Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle (letter to Robert Rush, 1813).

On the benefits of religious liberty:

...(O)ur rulers can have no authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. In neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg (Notes on Virginia, 1785.

Among the most inestimable of our blessings is that...of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support (Reply to Baptist Address, 1807).

Skepticism toward religious authority:

The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man (Letter to J. Moor, 1800).

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes (Letter to von Humboldt, 1813).

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own (Letter to H. Spafford, 1814).

Moral relativity:

Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to steal, murder, plunder, or bear false witness), and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality (Letter to J. Fishback, 1809).
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red55 · Dec 22, 2005

saltyone said:

Some would say that Webster was the father of the American educational system. Lets read what he had to say on the subject.....
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If you want to prove something about what the framers of the constitution believed, you have to quote the framers themselves, and not just famous Americans that lived around he turn of the 19th century. Many accomodationists, for example, are fond of quoting the famous lawyer and statesman Daniel Webster, who was a staunch proponent of Christian influence in government, but Webster played no role whatsoever in the formation of the Constitution.

saltyone · Dec 22, 2005

red55 said:

If you want to prove something about what the framers of the constitution believed, you have to quote the framers themselves, and not just famous Americans that lived around he turn of the 19th century. Many accomodationists, for example, are fond of quoting the famous lawyer and statesman Daniel Webster, who was a staunch proponent of Christian influence in government, but Webster played no role whatsoever in the formation of the Constitution.
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Didn't say he did. I said he played a role in our the educational systyem.

red55 · Dec 22, 2005

Patrick Henry:
"Orator of the Revolution."
• This is all the inheritance I can give my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed.”
—The Last Will and Testament of Patrick Henry
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If you want to find out how the Constitution was understood in 1787, quote people that supported the Constitution, and not those who thought the Constitution was evil. Patrick Henry, for example, made a number of statements suggesting that our nation was founded on belief in God, and that it was important to acknowledge God in civic affairs, but Henry lost the battle to put religion in the Constitution. More to the point, Henry was an anti-federalist, and vigorously opposed the Constitution when Virginia discussed ratification. Quoting Henry to prove things about the constitution is like quoting the chairman of the Republican National Committee to prove things about the platform of the Democratic party.