William O. Douglas Quotes
The Founders fashioned a charter which envisioned the widest possible tolerance of conflicting religious systems
William O. Douglas, 1898-1980, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Chairman, Security & Exchange Commission, 322 US 87
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Opponents of the strict separation of church and state use this quotation to support their view. However, Story herein describes public sentiment, not what was passed and ratified in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. See {614309} and {614310} for his statements from the same work that show that there was no question in his mind but that church and state are separated by the Constitution and the First Amendment.
It was drafted by John Adams. Note that there was freedom of religion for Christians and not others. Of all the colonies, Massachusetts had the worst record of religious intolerance with Puritans controlling everything. Rhode Island and Connecticut were created by religious dissenters from Massachusetts. Adams had all he could do to get the Christian sects on an equal footing ratified. The other colonies however, insisted to a total freedom of religion clause which became the First Amendment to the national Constitution. Adams himself was a kind of secular, cultural Christian who did not believe in the divinity of Christ and other Christian doctrine. See {592695} to illustrate this.
This book is endorsed by major religious organizations of all faiths as well as National School Boards Association, National Education Association, National PTA, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Association of Elementary School Principals, American Association of School Administrators and others. It is used as a guideline by most schools systems in the United States.
Pen name: Jack Nipps. Leland was a Baptist evangelist who had worked with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to secure Freedom of Conscience in Virginia. Many people think that ideas such as this are the views of irreligious men and women, but Leland was a devout, evangelical Baptist and Baptists suffered discrimination in early Colonial America. Freedom of conscience was essential for all religions who were not in the local majority. Tolerance essential. See 43,065.
This is one of the key documents showing the “wall of separation of church and state” was in use in early America. Almost 200 years later the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court seemed ignorant of this communications. See William Rehnquist: {373663}
Catholics were blamed by some for the defeat of Henry Clay in 1844. Anti catholic sentiment was high:. Johnson was then a Congressman representing a district where there were few Catholics and strong anti-Catholic feeling.
William Orville Douglas was an American jurist and politician who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas was confirmed at the age of 40, one of the youngest justices appointed to the court. His term, lasting 36 years and 211 days (1939–75), is the longest in the history of the Supreme Court. In 1975, Time magazine called Douglas "the most doctrinaire and committed civil libertarian ever to sit on the court."
