Founding Fathers Agree: Separation of Church and State

Several Presidents have reiterated the constitution’s Separation of Church and State.

President Thomas Jefferson: I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.

President George Washington: The Treaty of Tripoli (1797) which was negotiated under George Washington and signed under John Adams, flatly states that "The Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”.

President John Adams: I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!

President James Madison: To promote any religion is outside the proper scope of limited government.

President John Tyler: The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent -- that of total separation of church and state. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his maker after his own judgement ... Such is the great experiment which we have tried; our system of free government would be imperfect without it.

President John F. Kennedy: I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference -- and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

It would seem, some religious folks feel they know more about the formation of our constitution than the writers.

As a reminder when those fleeing religious oppression stepped foot on the North American continent most were holding the Geneva Bible, NOT the King James Bible. In fact, many consider the Geneva Bible to be part of the catalyst which caused our United States to come into existence.

President John Adams, the second president of the United States said:

"Let not Geneva be forgotten or despised. Religious liberty owes it most respect."
Anyone who's ever read the Scarlet Letter or other works regarding America's early spiritual communities knows that "religious freedom" was less about tolerance and diversity than about finding the elbow room to set up your own religious community in order to practice the "correct faith" and persecute anyone who tried to disagree with you.