James Madison Quotes About American Founding Fathers
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Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption
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Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.... During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.
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It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Gov't from interfence in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.
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Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
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Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.
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[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
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Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.
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And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
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Related Authors
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Benjamin Franklin Founding Father of the United States -
Dolley Madison Former First Lady of the United States -
Alexander Hamilton Founding Father of the United States -
James K. Polk 11th U.S. President -
James Buchanan 15th U.S. President -
Andrew Jackson 7th U.S. President -
Martin Van Buren 8th U.S. President -
John Locke Philosopher -
Thomas Jefferson 3rd U.S. President -
George Washington 1st U.S. President -
George Mason Statesman -
William Henry Harrison 9th U.S. President -
James A. Garfield 20th U.S. President -
Patrick Henry Governor of Virginia -
Abraham Lincoln 16th U.S. President -
John Adams 2nd U.S. President -
Aaron Burr Former Vice President of the United States -
John Quincy Adams 6th U.S. President -
James Monroe 5th U.S. President -
Thomas Paine Author