Words of Our Founding
Fathers:
"It is
proper to take alarm at the first experiment with our liberties...the freemen
of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise,
and entangled the question in precedent. They saw all the consequences in the
principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle."-James
Madison
"In matters of religion, I have considered that its free
exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the power of the general
government." -Thomas Jefferson
"There is not a shadow of right in the federal
government to intermeddle with religion...This subject is, for the honor of
"It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never
shrunk from its expression...that the germ of dissolution of our federal
government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary;...working like
gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and
advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction,
until all shall be usurped." --Thomas
Jefferson
"If men are so wicked with religion, what would they
be without it?" --Benjamin Franklin
“We have
staked the whole future of American civilization and political institutions to
our capacity to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
-James Madison
“It cannot
be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not
by religionists but by Christians, not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.” -Patrick Henry
"All that is
necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke
“The highest glory of the American Revolution was that it
connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the
principles of Christianity.”- John Quincy
“It is religion and morality alone
which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely
stand..." -John Quincy
“Among the most
inestimable of our blessings is that...of liberty to worship our Creator in the
way we think most agreeable in His will; a liberty deemed in other countries
incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its
best support….The rights of conscience we never submitted (to government). We are answerable for them to our God.” —
“A Bill of Rights
is what the people are entitled to against every Government on earth...And what
no just government should refuse…” —
“The God who gave
us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but
cannot disjoin them...Our efforts are in His hand, and directed by it; and He
will give them their effect in His own time.” —
“All, too, will
bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in
all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the
minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to
violate would be oppression.” —
Advice for Those Interpreting
the Constitution Which Our Chief Justice and Lawmakers Have Forgotten —
“On every question
of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was
adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in debates, and instead of trying what
meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the
probable one in which it was passed.”
— Thomas Jefferson 1823
We have no government armed with the power capable of
containing human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution
was made for the governance of a moral and religious people. It is wholly
inadequate for the governance of anything else." -John Adams
“Religion can survive in
the absence of freedom, but freedom without religion becomes dangerous and
unstable.'' - unknown
"There has never been a period of history which
common law has not recognized Christianity as lying as its foundation." U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story
(served 1811-1845) in a Harvard speech in 1829
"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody
the teachings of the Redeemer of Mankind, it is impossible that it should be
otherwise....Our civilization and institutions are emphatically Christian…” -U. S. Supreme Court Decision – Church of Holy
Trinity v. United States (1892) (The massive
evidence assembled into this court case is perhaps the largest body of evidence
ever assembled on this subject. Americans today have no idea of the extensive
evidence of Christianity and American government that is embodied here.)
``In the end, the state of
the
Comment: Before and
during the Revolutionary War, during the ratifying of the U. S. Constitution
and its Ten Amendments, many churches were ablaze in supporting the efforts to
form a new nation free from British tyranny. A spiritual awakening had occurred
in the
Words of Other Respected
Leaders:
“The man that defends
every truth but the truth that’s under attack at the present hour, that man is
found a traitor before God.” -Martin Luther.
“The church must be
reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the
conscience of the state. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal,
it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”
–Martin Luther King
The Constitution has enemies, both foreign and domestic.
Sometimes the enemy is a senator, a president, a foreign spy, a judge, a
government agency. Senators die, presidents serve out their terms, the IRS gets
replaced by a flat tax; but the Constitution remains. It remains until the
citizens allow the "enemies" to undermine its declarations and
absolute power. – Pastor Kent Kelly, Pastor,
“If, as has been asserted, we owe our
liberties to the ‘moral force’ of the pulpit, the censorship of that voice—for
reasons that have everything to do with partisan politics and nothing to do
with the separation of church and state— is a monumental mistake that should be
quickly corrected. In a culture like ours, which sometimes seems on moral life
support, the voice of the Church and her message of reconciliation, virtue, and
hope must not be silenced.” – Dr. D. James Kennedy, Coral
Ridge Ministries.
In the Days of Lyndon B. Johnson
“The world is different
now...And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forefathers fought
are still at issues around the globe — the belief that the rights of man come
not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” — President John F. Kennedy 1961 Inaugural
To Our
Free-Speech Allies in the Press
Please
Note: Taxing churches is like
taxing widows and orphans. The news media pays taxes because it is connected to
a vast ocean of advertising revenue from the deep pockets of commerce and industry.
Taxing churches in no way compares with the common practice
of taxing the news media. Enough
said.
The First Amendment
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom
of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
“The only security of all is in the free press…no government ought to be
without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.” ▬ Thomas Jefferson 1792
“…The
basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object
should be to keep that right: and were it left to me to decide whether we
should have government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I
should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” ▬
“When the Founding Fathers talked about speech, they were thinking about
political speech and what they were seeking to protect specifically was the
ability openly to criticize government.”
▬ First Amendment Book,
page 87, R. Wagner
“We have
staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of
government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political
institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to
control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of
God.”
▬ James Madison, author of
the First Amendment
“The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a
state.”
▬ John Adams ▬
“Here shall the Press the People’s right maintain,
Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain;
Here patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw,
Pledged to Religion,
▬ Joseph Story Salem,
“That the
people have a right to freedom of speech, and of writing and publishing their
sentiments; that the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of
liberty, and ought not to be violated.”
▬ State of
“The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can
never be restrained but by despotic government.” ▬ George Mason in the
“The press
is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a
rational, moral, and social
being.” ▬ Thomas Jefferson, letter
to A. Coray, 10/31/1823
End - To Our Free-Speech Allies in the Press