- "The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress
is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles."
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- March 16 is the birthday of James Madison (1751-1836),
known since his day as "the father of the constitution" for getting
it thru the 1787 constitutional convention. He then presented the Bill
of Rights to the 1st Congress in 1789.
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- Whatever our opinion of those documents & the US
as it has evolved, he was one of humanity's most important political thinkers,
& some of his writings are especially valid today. Indeed, re separation
of religion & state, he was so much more progressive than the vast
majority of today's US elected officials that, I submit, understanding
Madison means becoming an opponent of the Democratic & Republican parties,
which proclaim themselves the champions of his constitution but which have
repeatedly betrayed his secularism.
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- As presenter of the Bill of Rights, he is the ultimate
authority as to what "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" means, &
the implications of it. Yet, re the general public, he is the least known
founding father. Most educated Americans can't recognize his picture &
have never read anything by him, beyond his constitutional work which they
read in school.
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- Madison met Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) in October 1776,
when the author of the Declaration of Independence returned to Virginia's
House of Delegates. They became lifelong friends. Madison served (1809-17)
as Jefferson's successor as President & even succeeded him on the University
of Virginia board.
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- The two were so close ideologically that they have the
same qualities & faults. Both were sons of slaveholders. They read
Greek & Latin (Madison also knew Hebrew). As youths both were deeply
troubled by slavery, but soon realized that they could not abolish it.
They compromised with its advocates, but limited it. There was no slavery
north of the Ohio River. Import of slaves was banned in 1808. In his retirement,
Madison helped found American Colonization Society as a solution to southern
slavery.
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- As the ideological founders of the 1st modern republic,
they could not understand the implications of the fact that they compromised
with slavery, even if for the most realistic reasons, to maintain its unity.
We, after the civil war, understand that, in so doing, they lost the ability
to see the implications of their decision, for America or themselves. We
read their aged writings about slavery with pity for their inability, as
pioneers without a map, to understand the consequences of their accommodation,
& foresee the price their society was going to pay for it. Yet their
thinking re religion & secularism remained progressive even as their
thinking on slavery became vapid.
-
- Explanation for the contrast lies in that they felt that
they had remained true to their convictions re separation of religion &
state. In their youth, they separated them in Virginia, & in their
maturity they thought they did a good job of separating them at the federal
level. They made compromises along the way, but persisted and triumphed
on most issues. There were no religious tests for government posts. No
one was persecuted for religion. Having achieved much, Madison could discuss
himself in an unfavorable light compared to Jefferson. President Jefferson
would not proclaim Thanksgivings. He felt that the President is not elected
as a religious leader. Madison was a war time President. He gave in to
Congressional calls for a proclamation, but later realized this was wrong.
Indeed, in his retirement he went further than Jefferson.
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- "Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses
of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle
of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in
the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an
establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes
a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by
Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to
be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle
of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious
worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved
by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire
nation."
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- Significant success meant they could acknowledge what
still needed to be done. In 1787, Madison wanted the 1st Amendment to apply
to the states, but was forced to drop the issue in the interest of getting
support for separation at the federal level. Massachusetts didn't fully
disestablish religion until 1833. Indeed the 1st Amendment wasn't judicially
declared binding on the states until 1925. Still, he had definitely accomplished
much re religious freedom, in contrast to his efforts re slavery.
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- Madison's most important discussion of secularism has
a history. In 1856, Congress authorized his friend, William Rives, to prepare
his papers for publication. The Detatched (sic) Memoranda was among these.
Rives worked on them in his home. Eventually it was misfiled in Rives'
personal papers.
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- The document was recovered in 1946 by Elizabeth Fleet,
working on a biography of Rives, & published in the October 1946 issue
of The William and Mary Quarterly. There is no doubt of its authenticity.
It has been cited by the Supreme Court. As the notepaper has no watermark,
Rives dated it as "subsequent to" Madison's "retirement
from the presidency in 1817."
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- It is given here as in the Quarterly. Madison didn't
close some parentheses, he abbreviated, used old fashioned spelling, misspelled,
etc. The memorandum ends incompletely. I add translations from Latin.
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- Read it for yourselves. Then scroll Madison up to the
present. Imagine what his attitude would be towards religion & politics
in our America. Who would he vote for in 2004?
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- Jefferson & Madison cofounded the 'Republicans',
short for democratic republicans. Eventually, in the 1820s, their party
became known as the Democrats. The country is dotted with Democratic Party
James Madison Clubs. But only a minuscule fraction of party members have
read the Detatched Memoranda. So, one good deed deserves another. After
you've read it, & asked yourself if he would vote for Kerry in 2004,
pass it on to your Democratic liberal friends & ask them the same question:
Who would he vote for in 2004?
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- In 2002, atheist Michael Newdow got the 9th Federal Circuit
Court to rule that "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance was
unconstitutional. The Senate promptly voted, 99 to 0, to condemn the decision
in a non-binding vote. Guess which Democratic nominee for President was
among those 99 powerful intellects?
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- Democratic & Republican pollsters alike see the election
as a competition for the religious vote, particularly white Catholics &
Protestants. Bush gets most of their votes, but there are plenty of Democrats
among them. To win, Kerry must at least keep Gore's percentage of them.
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- According to the 2/18/03 Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing,
95% of Americans believe in God, as do 91% of those defining themselves
as liberals. Indeed our Democrats are so pious that, according to Gallup's
2/25/03 Briefing, 67% of them believe in the Devil. Eleven percent aren't
sure. Twenty-one percent put him out there with Santa Claus. (79% of Republicans
believe in the horned one).
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- I don't know if Kerry believes in the Devil. But I do
know that the party that our realistic liberals proclaim as the lesser
evil is full of believers in the devil, which somehow fits perfectly. In
any case, don't expect Kerry to publically take alarm at those children
of all ages, which is what most readers just did.
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- Gallup's commentator expressed the concern that cultured
people feel about such statistics re the majority of Americans, citizens
of the world's oldest democratic republic:
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- "Over the centuries, science has been able to explain
many phenomena that once seemed supernatural. Bad weather, ill health,
& heretical opinions may not be the work of the infernal after all.
With the advent of evolutionary theory & modern psychology, these days
we're more likely to think of people who do terrible things as broken human
beings, rather than agents of the netherworld. Furthermore, religion has
ceded its civil authority, & religiosity has declined somewhat in American
society. So we might expect belief in the devil to have largely evaporated.
It hasn't. Regardless of political belief, religious inclination, education,
or region, most Americans believe that the devil exists."
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- Gut basic unreality on the part of most voters is ominous
& we must understand it & deal with it, or it will be a miracle
equal to any in the Bible if the serious left were to win in this country.
And no one understood the danger inherent in the combination of popular
lack of serious scientific education & politicians pandering to religious
fundamentalism better than James Madison. So, let him speak again to you
& thru you to the American people.
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- Lenni Brenner, editor of 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration
with the Nazis, can be reached at BrennerL21@aol.com
-
- ==
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- James Madison, Detatched Memoranda
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- The danger of silent accumulations & encroachments
by Ecclesiastical Bodies have not sufficiently engaged attention in the
U.S. They have the noble merit of first unshackling the conscience from
persecuting laws, and of establishing among religious Sects a legal equality.
If some of the States have not embraced this just and this truly Xn principle
in its proper latitude, all of them present examples by which the most
enlightened States of the old world may be instructed; and there is one
State at least, Virginia, where religious liberty is placed on its true
foundation and is defined in its full latitude. The general principle is
contained in her declaration of rights, prefixed to her Constitution: but
it is unfolded and defined, in its precise extent, in the act of the Legislature,
usually named the Religious Bill, which passed into a law in the year 1786.
Here the separation between the authority of human laws, and the natural
rights of Man excepted from the grant on which all political authority
is founded, is traced as distinctly as words can admit, and the limits
to this authority established with as much solemnity as the forms of legislation
can express. The law has the further advantage of having been the result
of a formal appeal to the sense of the Community and a deliberate sanction
of a vast majority, comprizing every sect of Christians in the State. This
act is a true standard of Religious liberty: its principle the great barrier
agst usurpations on the rights of conscience. As long as it is respected
& no longer, these will be safe. Every provision for them short of
this principle, will be found to leave crevices at least thro' which bigotry
may introduce persecution; a monster, that feeding & thriving on its
own venom, gradually swells to a size and strength overwhelming all laws
divine & human.
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- Ye States of America, which retain in your Constitutions
or Codes, any aberration from the sacred principle of religious liberty,
by giving to Caesar what belongs to God, or joining together what God has
put asunder, hasten to revise & purify your systems, and make the example
of your Country as pure & compleat, in what relates to the freedom
of the mind and its allegiance to its maker, as in what belongs to the
legitimate objects of political & civil institutions.
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- Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion
& Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment
by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished
in their short history. (See the cases in which negatives were put by J.
M. on two bills passd by Congs and his signature withheld from another.
See also attempt in Kentucky for example, where it was proposed to exempt
Houses of Worship from taxes.
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- The most notable attempt was that in Virga to establish
a Genl assessment for the support of ail Xn sects. This was proposed in
the year by P. H. and supported by all his eloquence, aided by the remaining
prejudices of the Sect which before the Revolution had been established
by law. The progress of the measure was arrested by urging that the respect
due to the people required in so extraordinary a case an appeal to their
deliberate will. The bill was accordingly printed & published with
that view. At the instance of Col: George Nicholas, Col: George Mason &
others, the memorial & remonstrance agst it was drawn up, (which see)
and printed Copies of it circulated thro' the State, to be signed by the
people at large. It met with the approbation of the Baptists, the Presbyterians,
the Quakers, and the few Roman Catholics, universally; of the Methodists
in part; and even of not a few of the Sect formerly established by law.
When the Legislature assembled, the number of Copies & signatures prescribed
displayed such an overwhelming opposition of the people, that the proposed
plan of a genl assessmt was crushed under it; and advantage taken of the
crisis to carry thro' the Legisl: the Bill above referred to, establishing
religious liberty. In the course of the opposition to the bill in the House
of Delegates, which was warm & strenuous from some of the minority,
an experiment was made on the reverence entertained for the name &
sanctity of the Saviour, by proposing to insert the words "Jesus Christ"
after the words "our lord" in the preamble, the object of which
would have been, to imply a restriction of the liberty defined in the Bill,
to those professing his religion only. The amendment was discussed, and
rejected by a vote of agst (See letter of J. M. to Mr. Jefferson dated
) The opponents of the amendment having turned the feeling as well as judgment
of the House agst it, by successfully contending that the better proof
of reverence for that holy name wd be not to profane it by making it a
topic of legisl. discussion, & particularly by making his religion
the means of abridging the natural and equal rights of all men, in defiance
of his own declaration that his Kingdom was not of this world. This view
of the subject was much enforced by the circumstance that it was espoused
by some members who were particularly distinguished by their reputed piety
and Christian zeal.
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- But besides the danger of a direct mixture of Religion
& civil Government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded agst
in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding
it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The power of all corporations,
ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them
never fails to be a source of abuses. A warning on this subject is emphatically
given in the example of the various Charitable establishments in G. B.
the management of which has been lately scrutinized. The excessive wealth
of ecclesiastical Corporations and the misuse of it in many Countries of
Europe has Long been a topic of complaint. In some of them the Church has
amassed half perhaps the property of the nation. When the reformation took
place, an event promoted if not caused, by that disordered state of things,
how enormous were the treasures of religious societies, and how gross the
corruptions engendered by them; so enormous & so gross as to produce
in the Cabinets & Councils of the Protestant states a disregard, of
all the pleas of the interested party drawn from the sanctions of the law,
and the sacredness of property held in religious trust. The history of
England during the period of the reformation offers a sufficient illustration
for the present purpose.
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- Are the U. S. duly awake to the tendency of the precedents
they are establishing, in the multiplied incorporations of Religious Congregations
with the faculty of acquiring & holding property real as well as personal?
Do not many of these acts give this faculty, without limit either as to
time or as to amount? And must not bodies, perpetual in their existence,
and which may be always gaining without ever losing, speedily gain more
than is useful, and in time more than is safe? Are there not already examples
in the U. S. of ecclesiastical wealth equally beyond its object and the
foresight of those who laid the foundation of it? In the U. S. there is
a double motive for fixing limits in this case, because wealth may increase
not only from additional gifts, but from exorbitant advances in the value
of the primitive one. In grants of vacant lands, and of lands in the vicinity
of growing towns & Cities the increase of value is often such as if
foreseen, would essentially controul the liberality confirming them. The
people of the U. S. owe their Independence &. their liberty, to the
wisdom of descrying in the minute tax of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude
of the evil comprized in the precedent. Let them exert the same wisdom,
in watching agst every evil lurking under plausible disguises, and growing
up from small beginnings. Obsta principiis [resist beginnings].
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- see the Treatise of Father Paul on benificiary matters.
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- Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of
Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle
of religious freedom?
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- In strictness the answer on both points must be in the
negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment
of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious
worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers
of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out
of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national
establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the
Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority,
and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation.
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- The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable
violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The
tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship
agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation
in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case
with that of Roman Catholics & Quakers who have always had members
in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman
ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles
are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and
exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to
be tested by numbers or that the major sects have a right to govern the
minor.
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- If Religion consist in voluntary acts of individuals,
singly, or voluntarily associated, and it be proper that public functionaries,
as well as their Constituents shd discharge their religious duties, let
them like their Constituents, do so at their own expence. How small a contribution
from each member of Cong wd suffice for the purpose? How just wd it be
in its principle? How noble in its exemplary sacrifice to the genius of
the Constitution; and the divine right of conscience? Why should the expence
of a religious worship be allowed for the Legislature, be paid by the public,
more than that for the Ex. or Judiciary branch of the Govt
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- Were the establishment to be tried by its fruits, are
not the daily devotions conducted by these legal Ecclesiastics, already
degenerating into a scanty attendance, and a tiresome formality?
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- Rather than let this step beyond the landmarks of power
have the effect of a legitimate precedent, it will be better to apply to
it the legal aphorism de minimis non curat lex [the law doesn't care about
minute things]: or to class it cum "maculis quas aut incuria fudit,
aut humana parum cavit natura." [with "the natural negligence
which human nature can do very little to guard against"]
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- Better also to disarm in the same way, the precedent
of Chaplainships for the army and navy, than erect them into a political
authority in matters of religion. The object of this establishment is seducing;
the motive to it is laudable. But is it not safer to adhere to a right
pinciple, and trust to its consequences, than confide in the reasoning
however specious in favor of a wrong one. Look thro' the armies & navies
of the world, and say whether in the a ppointment of their ministers of
religion, the spiritual interest of the flocks or the temporal interest
of the Shepherds, be most in view: whether here, as elsewhere the political
care of religion is not a nominal more than a real aid. If the spirit of
armies be devout, the spirit out of the armies will never be less so; and
a failure of religious instruction &, exhortation from a voluntary
source within or without, will rarely happen: if such be not the spirit
of armies, the official services of their Teachers are not likely to produce
it. It is more likely to flow from the labours of a spontaneous zeal. The
armies of the Puritans had their appointed Chaplains; but without these
there would have been no lack of public devotion in that devout age.
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- The case of navies with insulated crews may be less within
the scope of these reflections. But it is not entirely so. The chance of
a devout officer, might be of as much worth to religion, as the service
of an ordinary chaplain. [were it admitted that religion has a real interest
in the latter.] But we are always to keep in mind that it is safer to trust
the consequences of a right principle, than reasonings in support of a
bad one.
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- Religious proclamations by the Executive recommending
thanksgivings & fasts are shoots from the same root with the legislative
acts reviewed.
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- Altho' recommendations only, they imply a religious agency,
making no part of the trust delegated to political rulers.
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- The objections to them are 1. that Govts ought not to
interpose in relation to those subject to their authority but in cases
where they can do it with effect. An advisory Govt is a contradiction in
terms. 2. The members of a Govt as such can in no sense, be regarded as
possessing an advisory trust from their Constituents in their religious
capacities. They cannot form an ecclesiastical Assembly, Convocation, Council,
or Synod, and as such issue decrees or injunctions addressed to the faith
or the Consciences of the people. In their individual capacities, as distinct
from their official station, they might unite in recommendations of any
sort whatever, in the same manner as any other individuals might do. But
then their recommendations ought to express the true character from which
they emanate. 3. They seem to imply and certainly nourish the erronious
idea of a national religion. The idea just as it related to the Jewish
nation under a theocracy, having been improperly adopted by so many nations
which have embraced Xnity, is too apt to lurk in the bosoms even of Americans,
who in general are aware of the distinction between religious & political
societies. The idea also of a union of all to form one nation under one
Govt in acts of devotion to the God of all is an imposing idea. But reason
and the principles of the Xn religion require that all the individuals
composing a nation even of the same precise creed & wished to unite
in a universal act of religion at the same time, the union ought to be
effected thro' the intervention of their religious not of their political
representatives. In a nation composed of various sects, some alienated
widely from others, and where no agreement could take place thro' the former,
the interposition of the latter is doubly wrong: 4. The tendency of the
practice, to narrow the recommendation to the standard of the predominant
sect. The Ist proclamation of Genl Washington dated Jany 1. 1795 (see if
this was the 1st) recommending a day of thanksgiving, embraced all who
believed in a supreme ruler of the Universe. That of Mr. Adams called for
a Xn worship. Many private letters reproached the Proclamations issued
by J. M. for using general terms, used in that of Presidt W--n; and some
of them for not inserting particulars according with the faith of certain
Xn sects. The practice if not strictly guarded naturally terminates in
a conformity to the creed of the majority and a single sect, if amounting
to a majority. 5. The last & not the least objection is the liability
of the practice to a subserviency to political views; to the scandal of
religion, as well as the increase of party animosities. Candid or incautious
politicians will not always disown such views. In truth it is difficult
to frame such a religious Proclamation generally suggested by a political
State of things, without referring to them in terms having some bearing
on party questions. The Proclamation of Pres: W. which was issued just
after the suppression of the Insurrection in Penna and at a time when the
public mind was divided on several topics, was so construed by many. Of
this the Secretary of State himself, E. Randolph seems to have had an anticipation.
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- The original draught of that Instrument filed in the
Dept. of State (see copies of these papers on the files of J. M.) in the
hand writing of Mr Hamilton the Secretary of the Treasury. It appears that
several slight alterations only had been made at the suggestion of the
Secretary of State; and in a marginal note in his hand, it is remarked
that "In short this proclamation ought to savour as much as possible
of religion, & not too much of having a political object." In
a subjoined note in the hand of Mr. Hamilton, this remark is answered by
the counter-remark that "A proclamation of a Government which is a
national act, naturally embraces objects which are political" so naturally,
is the idea of policy associated with religion, whatever be the mode or
the occasion, when a function of the latter is assumed by those in power.
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- During the administration of Mr Jefferson no religious
proclamation was issued. It being understood that his successor was disinclined
to such interpositions of the Executive and by some supposed moreover that
they might originate with more propriety with the Legislative Body, a resolution
was passed requesting him to issue a proclamation. (see the resolution
in the Journals of Congress.
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- It was thought not proper to refuse a compliance altogether;
but a form & language were employed, which were meant to deaden as
much as possible any claim of political right to enjoin religious observances
by resting these expressly on the voluntary compliance of individuals,
and even by limiting the recommendation to such as wished simultaneous
as well as voluntary performance of a religious act on the occasion.
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- End Detatched Memoranda
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- Happy Birthday, James Madison! - March 16, 2004
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