James Madison Quotes About Christian Father
-
Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.
→ -
Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption
→ -
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.
→ -
The civil Government, though bereft of every thing like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State.
→ -
Because we hold it for 'a fundamental and undeniable truth', that religion or 'the duty which we owe to our Creator' and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.
→ -
Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.
→ -
[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→
Related Authors
-
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