United States Congress (January 19, 1853) as part of a Congressional investigation, records the report of Mr. Badger of the Senate Judiciary Committee:
<The [First Amendment] clause speaks of "an establishment of religion." What is meant by that expression? It referred, without doubt, to that establishment which existed in the mother-country, and its meaning is to be ascertained by ascertaining what that establishment was.
It was the connection, with the state, of a particular religious society, by its endowment at the public expense, in exclusion of, or in preference to, any other, by giving to its members exclusive political rights, and by compelling the attendance of those who rejected its communion upon its worship or religious observances.
These three particulars constituted that union of Church and State of which our ancestors were so justly jealous and against which they so wisely and carefully provided....
If Congress has passed, or should pass, any law which, fairly construed, has in any degree introduced, or should attempt to introduce, in favor of any church, or ecclesiastical association, or system of religious faith, all or any one of these obnoxious particulars,-endowment at the public expense, peculiar privileges to its members, or disadvantages or penalties upon those who should reject its doctrines or belong to other communions,-such law would be a "law respecting an establishment of religion," and, therefore, in violation of the Constitution. But no law yet passed by Congress is justly liable to such an objection....
We have chaplains in the army and navy, and in Congress; but these are officers chosen with the freest and widest range of selection,-the law making no distinction whatever between any of the religions, Churches, or professions of faith known to the world.
Of these, none by law is excluded, none has any priority of legal right.
True, selections, in point of fact, are always made from some one of the denominations into which Christians are distributed; but that is not in consequence of any legal right or privilege, but by the voluntary choice of those who have the power of appointment.
This results from the fact that we are a Christian people,-from the fact that almost our entire population belongs to or sympathize with some one of the Christian denominations which compose the Christian world.
And Christians will of course select, for the performance of religious services, one who professes the faith of Christ. This, however, it should be carefully noted, is not by virtue of provision, but voluntary choice.
We are Christians, not because the law demands it, not to gain exclusive benefits or to avoid legal disabilities, but from choice and education; and in a land thus universally Christian, what is to be expected, what desired, but that we shall pay a due regard to Christianity, and have a reasonable respect for its ministers and religious solemnities?...
How comes it that Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, is recognized and respected by all the departments of Government? In the law, Sunday is a "dies non;" it cannot be used for the service of legal process, the returns of writs, or other judicial purposes. The executive departments, the public establishments, are all closed on Sundays; on that day neither House of Congress sits....
Here is a recognition by law, and by universal usage, not only of a Sabbath, but of the Christian Sabbath, in exclusion of the Jewish or Mohammedan Sabbath. Why, then, do the petitioners exclaim against this invasion of their religious rights? Why do they not assert that a national Sabbath, no less than a national Church, is an establishment of religion?...
The recognition of the Christian Sabbath is complete and perfect. The officers who receive salaries, or per-diem compensation, are discharged from duty on this day, because it is the Christian Sabbath, and yet suffer no loss or diminution of pay on that account....
They intended, by this Amendment, to prohibit "an establishment of religion" such as the English Church presented, or any thing like it. But they had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people; they did not intend to prohibit a just expression of religious devotion by the legislators or the nation, even in their public character as legislators; they did not intend to send our armies and navies forth to do battle for their country without any national recognition of that God on whom success or failure depends; they did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy. Not so had the battles of the Revolution been fought and the deliberations of the Revolutionary Congress been conducted. On the contrary, all had been done with a continual appeal to the Supreme Ruler of the World,
and an habitual reliance upon His protection of the righteous cause which they commended to His care.> 1853US001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1853US001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). United States Congress, January 19, 1853, Mr. Badger giving report of Congressional investigations in the Senate of the United States. The Reports of Committees of the Senate of the United States for the Second Session of the Thirty-Second Congress, 1852-53 (Washington: Robert Armstrong, 1853), pp. 1, 6, 8-9. Benjamin Franklin Morris, The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1864), pp. 324-327.