DOC Southerners in Blue: They Defied the Confederacy by Don Umphrey in History

Description

The whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the State governments; to be acted upon according to their justice and the State Constitutions; wrote Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States; 1833. Who was Joseph Story? He was the founder of Harvard Law School and appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison - the same James Madison who introduced the First Amendment in the first session of Congress. To understand the progression of religious freedom in America; it is necessary to review the Constitutions of the original thirteen States; together with the Colonial Charters that preceded them; i.e.: VIRGINIA CHARTER OF KING JAMES I; 1606 "...propagating of Christian Religion to such People as yet live in Darkness..." DELAWARE CHARTER OF KING ADOLPHUS; 1626 "...further propagation of the Holy Gospel..." MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION; 1780; Part 1; Article 3 "Every denomination of Christians...shall be equally under the protection of the law and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established..." PENNSYLVANIA CONSTITUTION; 1968; Article 1; Section 3 "All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences..." NORTH CAROLINA CONSTITUTION; 1971; Article 11; Section 4 "Beneficent provision for the poor; the unfortunate; and the orphan is one of the first duties of a civilized and a Christian state..." Examining Charters; Constitutions; Court Decisions and Correspondence; this overview of history is intended as a study help for those interested in discovering the role religion played in America's original thirteen States. The process of how the Federal Courts removed religion from States' jurisdiction; most notably in the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education case; and subsequently evolved it into its present interpretation is the subject of another book.