United States Supreme Court (1844) in the case of Vidal v. Girard's Executors, 43 U.S. (How. 2) 126, 127, 132, Justice Joseph Story delivered the Court's opinion. The case concerned one Stephen Girard, a deist from France, who had moved to Philadelphia and later died. In his Last Will and Testament, he left his entire estate, valued at over $7 million, to establish an orphanage and school, with the stipulation that no religious influence be allowed. The city rejected the proposal, as their lawyers declared:
<The plan of education proposed is anti-christian, and therefore repugnant to the law....The purest principles of morality are to be taught. Where are they found? Whoever searches for them must go to the source from which a Christian man derives his faith-the Bible....There is an obligation to teach what the Bible alone can teach, viz. a pure system of morality...
Both in the Old and New Testaments [religious instruction's] importance is recognized. In the Old it is said, "Thou shalt diligently teach them to thy children," and the New, "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not...." No fault can be found with Girard for wishing a marble college to bear his name for ever, but it is not valuable unless is has a fragrance of Christianity about it.> 1844US001
The U.S. Supreme Court rendered its unanimous opinion, delivered by Justice Joseph Story, stating (page 43 US 189-202):
<The late Stephen Girard, by his will dated 25 December, A.D. 1830, after making sundry bequests to his relatives...proceeded in the 20th clause of that will to make the following bequest, on which the present controversy mainly hinges...
The testator then proceeded to give a minute detail of the plan and structure of the college, and certain rules and regulations for the due management and government thereof and the studies to be pursued therein...
This objection is that the foundation of the college upon the principles and exclusions prescribed by the testator, is derogatory and hostile to the Christian religion, and so is void, as being against the common law and public policy of Pennsylvania, and this for two reasons:
first, because of the exclusion of all ecclesiastics, missionaries, and ministers of any sect from holding or exercising any station or duty in the college, or even visiting the same, and
secondly because it limits the instruction to be given to the scholars to pure morality, and general benevolence, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, thereby excluding, by implication, all instruction in the Christian religion...
The Christian religion is a part of the common law of Pennsylvania. But this proposition is to be received with its appropriate qualifications, and in connection with the bill of rights of that state, as found in its constitution of government.
The Constitution of 1790 (and the like provision will, in substance, be found in the Constitution of 1776, and in the existing Constitution of 1838), expressly declares,
"That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry against his consent; no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience, and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishment or modes of worship."
Language more comprehensive for the complete protection of every variety of religious opinion could scarcely be used, and it must have been intended to extend equally to all sects, whether they believed in Christianity or not, and whether they were Jews or infidels.
So that we are compelled to admit that although Christianity be a part of the common law of the state, yet it is so in this qualified sense, that its divine origin and truth are admitted, and therefore it is not to be maliciously and openly reviled and blasphemed against, to the annoyance of believers or the injury of the public. Such was the doctrine of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Updegraff v. Commonwealth, 11 Serg. & R. 394.
It is unnecessary for us, however, to consider what would be the legal effect of a devise in Pennsylvania for the establishment of a school or college, for the propagation of Judaism, or Deism, or any other form of infidelity.
Such a case is not to be presumed to exist in a Christian country, and therefore it must be made out by clear and indisputable proof. Remote inferences, or possible results, or speculative tendencies, are not to be drawn or adopted for such purposes.
There must be plain, positive, and express provisions, demonstrating not only that Christianity is not to be taught, but that it is to be impugned or repudiated.
Now in the present case there is no pretense to say that any such positive or express provisions exist, or are even shadowed forth in the will.
The testator does not say that Christianity shall not be taught in the college, but only that no ecclesiastic of any sect shall hold or exercise any station or duty in the college.
Suppose, instead of this, he had said that no person but a layman shall be an instructor or officer or visitor in the college, what legal objection could have been made to such a restriction? And yet the actual prohibition is in effect the same in substance.
But it is asked why are ecclesiastics excluded if it is not because they are the stated and appropriate preachers of Christianity?
The answer may be given in the very words of the testator. "In making this restriction," says he,
"I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any sect or person whatsoever. But as there is such a multitude of sects, and such a diversity of opinion amongst them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans, who are to derive advantage from this bequest, free from the excitement which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce."
Here, then, we have the reason given, and the question is not whether it is satisfactory to us or not, nor whether the history of religion does or does not justify such a sweeping statement, but the question is whether the exclusion be not such as the testator had a right, consistently with the laws of Pennsylvania, to maintain, upon his own notions of religious instruction.
Suppose the testator had excluded all religious instructors but Catholics, or Quakers, or Swedenborgians, or, to put a stronger case, he had excluded all religious instructors but Jews, would the bequest have been void on that account?
Suppose he had excluded all lawyers, or all physicians, or all merchants from being instructors or visitors, would the prohibition have been fatal to the bequest?
The truth is that in cases of this sort, it is extremely difficult to draw any just and satisfactory line of distinction in a free country as to the qualifications or disqualifications which may be insisted upon by the donor of a charity as to those who shall administer or partake of his bounty.
But the objection itself assumes the proposition that Christianity is not to be taught, because ecclesiastics are not to be instructors or officers.
But this is by no means a necessary or legitimate inference from the premises.
Why may not laymen instruct in the general principles of Christianity as well as ecclesiastics. There is no restriction as to the religious opinions of the instructors and officers. They may be, and doubtless, under the auspices of the city government there will always be men not only distinguished for learning and talent, but for piety and elevated virtue, and holy lives and characters.
And we cannot overlook the blessings, which such men by their conduct, as well as their instructions, may - nay must - impart to their youthful pupils.
Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as a divine revelation in the college - its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained, and its glorious principles of morality inculcated?
What is there to prevent a work, not sectarian, upon the general evidences of Christianity, from being read and taught in the college by lay teachers? Certainly there is nothing in the will that proscribes such studies.
Above all, the testator positively enjoins,
"that all the instructors and teachers in the college shall take pains to instill into the minds of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that on their entrance into active life, they may from inclination and habit evince benevolence towards their fellow creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer."
Now it may well be asked what is there in all this which is positively enjoined, inconsistent with the spirit or truths of Christianity? Are not these truths all taught by Christianity, although it teaches much more?
Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament? Where are benevolence, the love of truth, sobriety, and industry, so powerfully and irresistibly inculcated as in the sacred volume?
The testator has not said how these great principles are to be taught or by whom, except it be by laymen, nor what books are to be used to explain or enforce them.
All that we can gather from his language is that he desired to exclude sectarians and sectarianism from the college, leaving the instructors and officers free to teach the purest morality, the love of truth, sobriety, and industry, by all appropriate means, and of course including the best, the surest, and the most impressive.
The objection, then, in this view, goes to this - either that the testator has totally omitted to provide for religious instruction in his scheme of education (which, from what has been already said, is an inadmissible interpretation), or that it includes but partial and imperfect instruction in those truths.
In either view can it be truly said that it contravenes the known law of Pennsylvania upon the subject of charities, or is not allowable under the article of the bill of rights already cited?
Is an omission to provide for instruction in Christianity in any scheme of school or college education a fatal defect, which avoids it according to the law of Pennsylvania? If the instruction provided for is incomplete and imperfect, is it equally fatal?
These questions are propounded because we are not aware that anything exists in the Constitution or laws of Pennsylvania or the judicial decisions of its tribunals which would justify us in pronouncing that such defects would be so fatal.
Let us take the case of a charitable donation to teach poor orphans reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and navigation, and excluding all other studies and instruction; would the donation be void, as a charity in Pennsylvania, as being deemed derogatory to Christianity?
Hitherto it has been supposed that a charity for the instruction of the poor might be good and valid in England even if it did not go beyond the establishment of a grammar school.
And in America, it has been thought, in the absence of any express legal prohibitions, that the donor might select the studies, as well as the classes of persons, who were to receive his bounty without being compellable to make religious instruction a necessary part of those studies.
It has hitherto been thought sufficient, if he does not require anything to be taught inconsistent with Christianity.
Looking to the objection therefore in a mere juridical view, which is the only one in which we are at liberty to consider it, we are satisfied that there is nothing in the devise establishing the college, or in the regulations and restrictions contained therein, which are inconsistent with the Christian religion or are opposed to any known policy of the State of Pennsylvania.> 1844US002
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1844US001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). United States Supreme Court, 1844, Vidal v. Girard's Executors, 43 U.S. 126, 132, 143, 152-153, 170, 175 (1844).
1844US002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). United States Supreme Court, 1844, Vidal v. Girard's Executors, 43 U.S. 126, 127, 132 (1844), pp. 198, 205-206. Elizabeth Ridenour, Public Schools-Bible Curriculum (Greensboro, N.C.: National Council On Bible Curriculum, 1996), p. 27. Robert K. Skolrood, The National Legal Foundation, letter to National Council on the Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, Sept. 13, 1994, p. 1. United States Supreme Court, 1892, Justice David Josiah Brewer, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 US 457, 458, 465-471, 36 L ed 226. "Our Christian Heritage," Letter from Plymouth Rock (Marlborough, NH: The Plymouth Rock Foundation), p. 6. Gary DeMar, America's Christian History: The Untold Story (Atlanta, GA: American Vision Publishers, Inc., 1993), p. 63.