Comments on: How the Supreme Court Found the Wall

By: Doug Indeap

Doug Indeap — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 03:20:36 +0000

Drakeman tells an interesting story, but his brief essay leaves out much pertinent history and, in the process, gives the impression that separation of church and state is largely the result of accident, coincidence, or conspiracy. Hardly.

Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that even as new principles are proclaimed, old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”

During his presidency, Madison also vetoed two bills, neither of which would form a national religion or compel observance of any religion, on the ground that they were contrary to the establishment clause. While some in Congress expressed surprise that the Constitution prohibited Congress from incorporating a church in the town of Alexandria in the District of Columbia or granting land to a church in the Mississippi Territory, Congress upheld both vetoes. He pocket vetoed a third bill that would have exempted from import duties plates to print Bibles. Separation of church and state is not a recent invention of the…

By: David

David — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:02:45 +0000

It appears he has a PhD in religion and lectures adjunct in politics department at Princeton. More important he has a book published by Cambridge Univ press and this particular talk was presented to a community of scholars at Oxford.

So an unconventional background for a scholar but no reason to question his bona fides.

By: Daniel Silliman

Daniel Silliman — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:39:53 +0000

Is Drakeman a historian? His bio calls him an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist. Not to say venture capitalists can’t venture into writing history, but there’s a difference between a venture capitalist writing history and a historian.

By: Peter Wielhouwer

Peter Wielhouwer — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:58:07 +0000

Two additional points are worth noting here.
First, Jefferson got the metaphor from Roger Williams, who was describing the need for a protective wall for the church to keep it from being corrupted by the world.
Second, Jefferson’s letter was in response to the Danbury Baptists, who were concerned that he would use the power of the government to begin dictating requirements to the church.
Jefferson’s response, therefore, is in the context of concerns about government entanglement in religious institutions. I have my American Government and Religion & Politics students read both the Baptists’ letter and Jefferson’s response, so they have the whole story.