AMERICA'S CHRISTIAN HERITAGE HOMEPAGE
Week 1 - The Founding Fathers
35. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1931 declared: �We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.�
36. In 1820, Thomas Jefferson wrote: �To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one that would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps�Their power is the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots.�
37. Justice Joseph Story, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1812 to 1845 wrote the first commentaries on the Constitution and they stand as the definitive 19th Century interpretation of the Constitution. On the issue of the First Amendment and religion he wrote: �Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and the amendments to it�the general, if not universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship.�
He goes on to explain: �The right of a society or government to interfere in matters of religion will hardly be contested by any persons, who believe that piety, religion, and morality are intimately connected with the well being of the state, and indispensable to the administration of civil justice. The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion, the being, and attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility of him of all our actions, founded upon moral freedom and accountability; a future state of rewards and punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social, and benevolent virtues; - these never can be a matter of indifference in any well ordered community. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive, how any civilized society can well exist without them. And at all events, it is impossible for those, who believe in the truth of Christianity, as a divine revelation, to doubt that it is the especial duty of government to foster, and encourage it among all the citizens and subjects.�
38. In 1892, The Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in the case of Holy Trinity v. United States: �Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of The Redeemer of mankind. It's impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian... This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation... we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth... These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.�
39. British Statesman, William Wiberforce, whose determined decades long assault on the British slave trade led to its final abolition in Great Britain and the United States wrote: �It is a truth attested by the history of all ages and countries, and established on the authority of the ablest writers, both ancient and modern�that the religion and morality of a country, especially of every free community, are inseparably connected with its preservation and welfare; that their flourishing or declining state is the sure indication of its tending to prosperity or decay. It has been expressly laid down, that a people grossly corrupt are incapable of liberty.�
40. Edmund Burke, a British writer, speaker, leader and philosopher wrote: �All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.�
LINKS:
WALLBUILDERS
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS