First American Right

Details: 23 September 2011

Civics - History

It is something of a loss and a shame that in these days very few American schools teach civics in a way that links that study to history. As a matter of fact, it can be shocking to know that significant numbers of high schools and elementary schools in our country do not teach any civics at all. So it is not surprising to be told that although some American young people might learn something about our constitutional Bill of Rights, that is, the first ten amendments to our federal constitution, surveys show that even then they rarely can identify the first of our rights listed in that document. They, and the general American public too, often say freedom of speech or of the press, or freedom from being forced to self-denunciation, or freedom from warrantless searches, etc. are the first of our rights. However, it is actually freedom of religion which is listed first in the Bill of Rights. The first words of the first article of the first amendment are: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...."

It is also little known that the only two Catholic signers of the U.S. Constitution (Catholics were a very tiny minority in the original thirteen colonies.) were both very active in bringing about the Bill of Rights and in promoting the placing of religious freedom in the first position. These were Thomas Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania and Daniel Carroll of Maryland. Daniel Carroll, a patriotic supporter of the American Revolution, was a cousin to the famous Charles Carroll, the Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, and he was the brother of Father John Carroll who later became the first Catholic Bishop and Archbishop of Baltimore, which was the first Diocese and Archdiocese established by the Catholic Church in the new United States of America. Daniel was elected to the House of Representatives of the First Congress and served though three sessions from March 4, 1789 to March 4, 1791. Daniel Carroll took special interest in the first and the tenth amendments and was on the committee delegated to steer the Bill of Rights through the House.

It is clear from the accounts of the debates and discussions that the First Congress did not intend the Constitution to be hostile to religion. It was initially suggested, for example, that the amendment say "No religion shall be established by law nor shall the right of conscience be infringed." This was seen, however, as "a tendency to abolish religion" by many representatives and those words were rejected on that basis. Some people have asserted that Bishop John Carroll had been instrumental in formulating the first amendment, but there is no evidence to support that view. He did express his sentiments about the matter as the leader of the Catholic community in the new country, but it appears that all the specific work was done by Daniel, his brother. Charles Carroll, Daniel’s well-known cousin, was a Senator from Maryland in the First Congress and strongly supported the Bill of Rights in that Upper House.

Afterwards

After the First Congress had passed the Bill of Rights and had sent the amendments to the States for ratification, the same Congress then subsequently passed legislation to hire and pay chaplains for both the House and Senate and for the military services and to pay for religious missionaries to Indians. Obviously they did not see this as a violation of the Bill of Rights which they had just passed. Over the centuries since the passage of the Bill of Rights, court decisions unfortunately excessively have emphasized the "establishment" aspect of the first amendment and have basically ignored the Bill of Rights forbidding the "prohibition of free exercise" clause. In May of 1789 George Washington wrote, "If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the constitution framed in the convention where I had the honor to preside might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it...."

One of the reasons for the freedom of religion part of the Bill of Rights being positioned in first place was the large number of petitions sent to the First Congress from throughout the States. The Congress paid close attention to those desires of the people especially because the ratification of the Constitution was a close call, and the main objection of those who opposed it was that the original document lacked a Bill of Rights. It should be remembered too that at that time several of the States, particularly in New England, had Protestant churches and religions established and supported by their laws, taxes, and State Constitutions. The first amendment was not meant to interfere from the federal level with those arrangements. Before the Bill of Rights was passed, the State of Virginia, largely through the work of Thomas Jefferson, had already disestablished its state-church which was the Anglican, but some of the other States kept their established Protestant churches for some years. Massachusetts, for example, kept theirs until the 1830’s. By that time all the state churches had been disestablished.

Daniel Carroll believed in a stronger central government for America than was found in Articles of Confederation and so firmly supported the new Constitution. However, he was also strongly in favor of a limited federal government and that is why he pushed for the adoption of the tenth amendment. He followed the view of Saint Robert Bellarmine that national sovereignty was owned by the people who then can give some of it to this or that institution or person, but have the authority to retain some for themselves. Thus, the tenth amendment reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by this Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This Right sadly is largely unknown and seems in modern times to have no or very little influence in American national life.

Even Jefferson

Although he later coined the phrase "wall of separation between Church and State", (which is found nowhere in the Constitution) Jefferson himself, with his customary inconsistency, sponsored and attended Protestant divine services held in the national Capitol while he was President. He may have done this to counteract the accusations of his political opponents that he was an atheist. (He might have been some kind of Deist.) He also authorized and sponsored paying the salaries of ministers (and even some Catholic priests) who were ministering to native American groups. Neither Jefferson’s nor Madison’s anti-religious views seem to have had any influence on the first amendment language. Jefferson was not directly involved in the constitutional convention nor in the First Congress.

Certainly Washington, the Carrolls, and even Jefferson would probably be astonished to learn that in our times the ACLU liberal types insist that the first amendment makes it a crime to say a prayer or even mention God at a public school graduation ceremony or to sing a Christmas carol there.