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Today's
Stories
March 16, 2004
Bill Christison
The Aftershocks from Madrid
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
March 5, 2004
Chris Floyd
Uncle
Sugar: How the WMD Scam Put Money in Bush Family Pockets
Ron Jacobs
Chaos
Reigns: Haiti and Iraq
Lisa Viscidi
Guatemalan
Refugees: a Difficult Return
Yves Engler
Canada and the Coup in Haiti
Mike Legro
Those Bush Ads: Some Dead Bodies Are Worth More Than Others
Javier Armas
A Night of Inspiration: Oakland Benefit for Grocery Workers Strike
Bennett Hoffman
"Who Cares About Haiti, Anyway?"
Bill Christison
Faltering Neo-Cons Still Dangerous
Website of the Day
Haiti Support Group
March 4, 2004
Diane Christian
Sex
and Ideals
Sen. Robert Byrd
Stop the Stonewalling, Mr. President: Fairy Tales, Bush and the
9/11 Commission
Norman Solomon
Assuming the Right to Intervene: The US Press and Haiti
Jack Brown
A Fragrant Saga of Mexico's Greens
Hal Cranmer
The
John Kerry Experience
David Lindorff
Greenspan's Pension
Sam Smith
The Election is Over, We Lost
Christopher Brauchli
Goin'
to the Chapel: The Gay and the Dead
Brian D. Barry
The "Perfect" World of E-Voting: A Computer Scientist
Reports from the Polling Booth
Richard Oxman
Arsonists for Haiti?
Peter Phillips
Haitian
Fantasies: Mainstream Media Fails Itself, Again
Tariq Ali
Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and
Palestine
Website of the Day
What If Boeing Ads Told the Truth?
March 3, 2004
Heather Williams / Karl
Laraque
Marines
Retake Haiti
Jack McCarthy
Guy's
Our Guy: "I am the Chief. My Hero is Pinochet."
Robert Sandels
The
Purloined Label: The Struggle Over the Havana Club Trademark
Juliana Fredman / James Davis
Israeli Organized Crime
JG
The Yuppie Silence on Haiti
Emilio Sardi
The
Colombia/US Free Trade Deal: It's About More Than Trade
Alan Farago
Swimming in Sewage
Mike Whitney
"Blood
Will Have Blood": 143 Murdered in Liberated Iraq
CounterPunch Wire
Nader's Legislative Record in the 1960s
Steve Perry
Kerry
Advisory: Remember Lena Guerrero
Nelson George/ Marcus Miller
Miles Davis & Hip Hop: a Conversation
Website of the Day
$10,000 Is Yours for the Taking: The USS Liberty Challenge
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's
the Answer, What's the Question?
Conn Hallinan
Haiti:
the Dangerous Muddle
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Bravo
H-Bomb Test: One WMD They Couldn't Hide
Mike Whitney
Regime Change in Haiti: the Bush Dominos Keep Falling
Ra Ravishankar
Afghanistan, the Liberation That Isn't: an Interview with Mariam
from RAWA
Dan Bacher
Merle Haggard & the Politics of Salmon: "Clearcutting
is Rape"
Greg Moses
Oscar White
Brandy Baker
Mel Gibson's Minstrelsy Show
Little Tucker Carlson
What I Did on My Vacation
Robert Fisk
All This
Talk of Civil War, Now This
Merle Haggard
Kern River
Website of the Day
Rebel Edit
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
March
16, 2004
Happy Birthday, James Madison!
The
Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
By LENNI BRENNER
"The establishment of the chaplainship
to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as
of Constitutional principles."
March 16 is the birthday of James Madison (1751-1836),
known since his day as "the father of the constitution"
for getting it thru the 1787 constitutional convention. He then
presented the Bill of Rights to the 1st Congress in 1789.
Whatever our opinion of those documents
& the US as it has evolved, he was one of humanity's most
important political thinkers, & some of his writings are
especially valid today. Indeed, re separation of religion &
state, he was so much more progressive than the vast majority
of today's US elected officials that, I submit, understanding
Madison means becoming an opponent of the Democratic & Republican
parties, which proclaim themselves the champions of his constitution
but which have repeatedly betrayed his secularism.
As presenter of the Bill of Rights, he
is the ultimate authority as to what "Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof" means, & the implications
of it. Yet, re the general public, he is the least known founding
father. Most educated Americans can't recognize his picture &
have never read anything by him, beyond his constitutional work
which they read in school.
Madison met Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
in October 1776, when the author of the Declaration of Independence
returned to Virginia's House of Delegates. They became lifelong
friends. Madison served (1809-17) as Jefferson's successor as
President & even succeeded
him on the University of Virginia board.
The two were so close ideologically that
they have the same qualities & faults. Both were sons of
slaveholders. They read Greek & Latin (Madison also knew
Hebrew). As youths both were deeply troubled by slavery, but
soon realized that they could not abolish it. They compromised
with its advocates, but limited it. There was no slavery north
of the Ohio River. Import of slaves was banned in 1808. In his
retirement, Madison helped found American Colonization Society
as a solution to southern slavery.
As the ideological founders of the 1st
modern republic, they could not understand the implications of
the fact that they compromised with slavery, even if for the
most realistic reasons, to maintain its unity. We, after the
civil war, understand that, in so doing, they lost the ability
to see the implications of their decision, for America or themselves.
We read their aged writings about slavery with pity for their
inability, as pioneers without a map, to understand the consequences
of their accommodation, & foresee the price their society
was going to pay for it. Yet their thinking re religion &
secularism remained progressive even as their thinking on slavery
became vapid.
Explanation for the contrast lies in
that they felt that they had remained true to their convictions
re separation of religion & state. In their youth, they separated
them in Virginia, & in their maturity they thought they did
a good job of separating them at the federal level. They made
compromises along the way, but persisted and triumphed on most
issues. There were no religious tests for government posts. No
one was persecuted for religion. Having achieved much, Madison
could discuss himself in an unfavorable light compared to Jefferson.
President Jefferson would not proclaim Thanksgivings. He felt
that the President is not elected as a religious leader. Madison
was a war time President. He gave in to Congressional calls for
a proclamation, but later realized this was wrong. Indeed, in
his retirement he went further than Jefferson.
"Is the appointment of Chaplains
to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution,
and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness
the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution
of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national
religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious
worship for the national representatives, to be performed by
Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these
are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve
the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision
for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the
representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted
by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation."
Significant success meant they could
acknowledge what still needed to be done. In 1787, Madison wanted
the 1st Amendment to apply to the states, but was forced to drop
the issue in the interest of getting support for separation at
the federal level. Massachusetts didn't fully disestablish religion
until 1833. Indeed the 1st Amendment wasn't judicially declared
binding on the states until 1925. Still, he had definitely accomplished
much re religious freedom, in contrast to his efforts re slavery.
Madison's most important discussion of
secularism has a history. In 1856, Congress authorized his friend,
William Rives, to prepare his papers for publication. The Detatched
(sic) Memoranda was among these. Rives worked on them in his
home. Eventually it was misfiled in Rives' personal papers.
The document was recovered in 1946 by
Elizabeth Fleet, working on a biography of Rives, & published
in the October 1946 issue of The William and Mary Quarterly.
There is no doubt of its authenticity. It has been cited by the
Supreme Court. As the notepaper has no watermark, Rives dated
it as "subsequent to" Madison's "retirement from
the presidency in 1817."
It is given here as in the Quarterly.
Madison didn't close some parentheses, he abbreviated, used old
fashioned spelling, misspelled, etc. The memorandum ends incompletely.
I add translations from Latin.
Read it for yourselves. Then scroll Madison
up to the present. Imagine what his attitude would be towards
religion & politics in our America. Who would he vote for
in 2004?
Jefferson & Madison cofounded the
'Republicans', short for democratic republicans. Eventually,
in the 1820s, their party became known as the Democrats. The
country is dotted with Democratic Party James Madison Clubs.
But only a minuscule fraction of party members have read the
Detatched Memoranda. So, one good deed deserves another. After
you've read it, & asked yourself if he would vote for Kerry
in 2004, pass it on to your Democratic liberal friends &
ask them the same question: Who would he vote for in 2004?
In 2002, atheist Michael Newdow got the
9th Federal Circuit Court to rule that "under God"
in the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional. The Senate
promptly voted, 99 to 0, to condemn the decision in a non-binding
vote. Guess which Democratic nominee for President was among
those 99 powerful intellects?
Democratic & Republican pollsters
alike see the election as a competition for the religious vote,
particularly white Catholics & Protestants. Bush gets most
of their votes, but there are plenty of Democrats among them.
To win, Kerry must at least keep Gore's percentage of them.
According to the 2/18/03 Gallup Poll
Tuesday Briefing, 95% of Americans believe in God, as do 91%
of those defining themselves as liberals. Indeed our Democrats
are so pious that, according to Gallup's 2/25/03 Briefing, 67%
of them believe in the Devil. Eleven percent aren't sure. Twenty-one
percent put him out there with Santa Claus. (79% of Republicans
believe in the horned one).
I don't know if Kerry believes in the
Devil. But I do know that the party that our realistic liberals
proclaim as the lesser evil is full of believers in the devil,
which somehow fits perfectly. In any case, don't expect Kerry
to publically take alarm at those children of all ages, which
is what most readers just did.
Gallup's commentator expressed the concern
that cultured people feel about such statistics re the majority
of Americans, citizens of the world's oldest democratic republic:
"Over the centuries, science has
been able to explain many phenomena that once seemed supernatural.
Bad weather, ill health, & heretical opinions may not be
the work of the infernal after all. With the advent of evolutionary
theory & modern psychology, these days we're more likely
to think of people who do terrible things as broken human beings,
rather than agents of the netherworld. Furthermore, religion
has ceded its civil authority, & religiosity has declined
somewhat in American society. So we might expect belief in the
devil to have largely evaporated. It hasn't. Regardless of political
belief, religious inclination, education, or region, most Americans
believe that the devil exists."
Gut basic unreality on the part of most
voters is ominous & we must understand it & deal with
it, or it will be a miracle equal to any in the Bible if the
serious left were to win in this country. And no one understood
the danger inherent in the combination of popular lack of serious
scientific education & politicians pandering to religious
fundamentalism better than James Madison. So, let him speak again
to you & thru you to the American people.
==
James Madison, Detatched Memoranda
The danger of silent accumulations &
encroachments by Ecclesiastical Bodies have not sufficiently
engaged attention in the U.S. They have the noble merit of first
unshackling the conscience from persecuting laws, and of establishing
among religious Sects a legal equality. If some of the States
have not embraced this just and this truly Xn principle in its
proper latitude, all of them present examples by which the most
enlightened States of the old world may be instructed; and there
is one State at least, Virginia, where religious liberty is placed
on its true foundation and is defined in its full latitude. The
general principle is contained in her declaration of rights,
prefixed to her Constitution: but it is unfolded and defined,
in its precise extent, in the act of the Legislature, usually
named the Religious Bill, which passed into a law in the year
1786. Here the separation between the authority of human laws,
and the natural rights of Man excepted from the grant on which
all political authority is founded, is traced as distinctly as
words can admit, and the limits to this authority established
with as much solemnity as the forms of legislation can express.
The law has the further advantage of having been the result of
a formal appeal to the sense of the Community and a deliberate
sanction of a vast majority, comprizing every sect of Christians
in the State. This act is a true standard of Religious liberty:
its principle the great barrier agst usurpations on the rights
of conscience. As long as it is respected & no longer, these
will be safe. Every provision for them short of this principle,
will be found to leave crevices at least thro' which bigotry
may introduce persecution; a monster, that feeding & thriving
on its own venom, gradually swells to a size and strength overwhelming
all laws divine & human.
Ye States of America, which retain in
your Constitutions or Codes, any aberration from the sacred principle
of religious liberty, by giving to Caesar what belongs to God,
or joining together what God has put asunder, hasten to revise
& purify your systems, and make the example of your Country
as pure & compleat, in what relates to the freedom of the
mind and its allegiance to its maker, as in what belongs to the
legitimate objects of political & civil institutions.
Strongly guarded as is the separation
between Religion & Govt 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. (See the cases in which negatives were put by J. M.
on two bills passd by Congs and his signature withheld from another.
See also attempt in Kentucky for example, where it was proposed
to exempt Houses of Worship from taxes.
The most notable attempt was that in
Virga to establish a Genl assessment for the support of ail Xn
sects. This was proposed in the year by P. H. and supported
by all his eloquence, aided by the remaining prejudices of the
Sect which before the Revolution had been established by law.
The progress of the measure was arrested by urging that the respect
due to the people required in so extraordinary a case an appeal
to their deliberate will. The bill was accordingly printed &
published with that view. At the instance of Col: George Nicholas,
Col: George Mason & others, the memorial & remonstrance
agst it was drawn up, (which see) and printed Copies of it circulated
thro' the State, to be signed by the people at large. It met
with the approbation of the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the
Quakers, and the few Roman Catholics, universally; of the Methodists
in part; and even of not a few of the Sect formerly established
by law. When the Legislature assembled, the number of Copies
& signatures prescribed displayed such an overwhelming opposition
of the people, that the proposed plan of a genl assessmt was
crushed under it; and advantage taken of the crisis to carry
thro' the Legisl: the Bill above referred to, establishing religious
liberty. In the course of the opposition to the bill in the House
of Delegates, which was warm & strenuous from some of the
minority, an experiment was made on the reverence entertained
for the name & sanctity of the Saviour, by proposing to insert
the words "Jesus Christ" after the words "our
lord" in the preamble, the object of which would have been,
to imply a restriction of the liberty defined in the Bill, to
those professing his religion only. The amendment was discussed,
and rejected by a vote of agst (See letter of J. M. to Mr.
Jefferson dated ) The opponents of the amendment having turned
the feeling as well as judgment of the House agst it, by successfully
contending that the better proof of reverence for that holy name
wd be not to profane it by making it a topic of legisl. discussion,
& particularly by making his religion the means of abridging
the natural and equal rights of all men, in defiance of his own
declaration that his Kingdom was not of this world. This view
of the subject was much enforced by the circumstance that it
was espoused by some members who were particularly distinguished
by their reputed piety and Christian zeal.
But besides the danger of a direct mixture
of Religion & civil Government, there is an evil which ought
to be guarded agst in the indefinite accumulation of property
from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical
corporations. The power of all corporations, ought to be limited
in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails
to be a source of abuses. A warning on this subject is emphatically
given in the example of the various Charitable establishments
in G. B. the management of which has been lately scrutinized.
The excessive wealth of ecclesiastical Corporations and the misuse
of it in many Countries of Europe has Long been a topic of complaint.
In some of them the Church has amassed half perhaps the property
of the nation. When the reformation took place, an event promoted
if not caused, by that disordered state of things, how enormous
were the treasures of religious societies, and how gross the
corruptions engendered by them; so enormous & so gross as
to produce in the Cabinets & Councils of the Protestant states
a disregard, of all the pleas of the interested party drawn from
the sanctions of the law, and the sacredness of property held
in religious trust. The history of England during the period
of the reformation offers a sufficient illustration for the present
purpose.
Are the U. S. duly awake to the tendency
of the precedents they are establishing, in the multiplied incorporations
of Religious Congregations with the faculty of acquiring &
holding property real as well as personal? Do not many of these
acts give this faculty, without limit either as to time or as
to amount? And must not bodies, perpetual in their existence,
and which may be always gaining without ever losing, speedily
gain more than is useful, and in time more than is safe? Are
there not already examples in the U. S. of ecclesiastical wealth
equally beyond its object and the foresight of those who laid
the foundation of it? In the U. S. there is a double motive for
fixing limits in this case, because wealth may increase not only
from additional gifts, but from exorbitant advances in the value
of the primitive one. In grants of vacant lands, and of lands
in the vicinity of growing towns & Cities the increase of
value is often such as if foreseen, would essentially controul
the liberality confirming them. The people of the U. S. owe their
Independence &. their liberty, to the wisdom of descrying
in the minute tax of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil
comprized in the precedent. Let them exert the same wisdom, in
watching agst every evil lurking under plausible disguises, and
growing up from small beginnings. Obsta principiis [resist beginnings].
see the Treatise of Father Paul
on benificiary matters.
Is the appointment of Chaplains to the
two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and
with the pure principle of religious freedom?
In strictness the answer on both points
must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids
everything like an establishment of a national religion. The
law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for
the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of
religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be
paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle
of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a
religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative
Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of
religion paid by the entire nation.
The establishment of the chaplainship
to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as
of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected
[by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose
creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the
majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with
that of Roman Catholics & Quakers who have always had members
in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic
clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his
religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small,
is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity
the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers
or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor.
If Religion consist in voluntary acts
of individuals, singly, or voluntarily associated, and it be
proper that public functionaries, as well as their Constituents
shd discharge their religious duties, let them like their Constituents,
do so at their own expence. How small a contribution from each
member of Cong wd suffice for the purpose? How just wd it be
in its principle? How noble in its exemplary sacrifice to the
genius of the Constitution; and the divine right of conscience?
Why should the expence of a religious worship be allowed for
the Legislature, be paid by the public, more than that for the
Ex. or Judiciary branch of the Govt
Were the establishment to be tried by
its fruits, are not the daily devotions conducted by these legal
Ecclesiastics, already degenerating into a scanty attendance,
and a tiresome formality?
Rather than let this step beyond the
landmarks of power have the effect of a legitimate precedent,
it will be better to apply to it the legal aphorism de minimis
non curat lex [the law doesn't care about minute things]: or
to class it cum "maculis quas aut incuria fudit, aut humana
parum cavit natura." [with "the natural negligence
which human nature can do very little to guard against"]
Better also to disarm in the same way,
the precedent of Chaplainships for the army and navy, than erect
them into a political authority in matters of religion. The object
of this establishment is seducing; the motive to it is laudable.
But is it not safer to adhere to a right pinciple, and trust
to its consequences, than confide in the reasoning however specious
in favor of a wrong one. Look thro' the armies & navies of
the world, and say whether in the appointment of their ministers
of religion, the spiritual interest of the flocks or the temporal
interest of the Shepherds, be most in view: whether here, as
elsewhere the political care of religion is not a nominal more
than a real aid. If the spirit of armies be devout, the spirit
out of the armies will never be less so; and a failure of religious
instruction &, exhortation from a voluntary source within
or without, will rarely happen: if such be not the spirit of
armies, the official services of their Teachers are not likely
to produce it. It is more likely to flow from the labours of
a spontaneous zeal. The armies of the Puritans had their appointed
Chaplains; but without these there would have been no lack of
public devotion in that devout age.
The case of navies with insulated crews
may be less within the scope of these reflections. But it is
not entirely so. The chance of a devout officer, might be of
as much worth to religion, as the service of an ordinary chaplain.
[were it admitted that religion has a real interest in the latter.]
But we are always to keep in mind that it is safer to trust the
consequences of a right principle, than reasonings in support
of a bad one.
Religious proclamations by the Executive
recommending thanksgivings & fasts are shoots from the same
root with the legislative acts reviewed.
Altho' recommendations only, they imply
a religious agency, making no part of the trust delegated to
political rulers.
The objections to them are 1. that Govts
ought not to interpose in relation to those subject to their
authority but in cases where they can do it with effect. An advisory
Govt is a contradiction in terms. 2. The members of a Govt as
such can in no sense, be regarded as possessing an advisory trust
from their Constituents in their religious capacities. They cannot
form an ecclesiastical Assembly, Convocation, Council, or Synod,
and as such issue decrees or injunctions addressed to the faith
or the Consciences of the people. In their individual capacities,
as distinct from their official station, they might unite in
recommendations of any sort whatever, in the same manner as any
other individuals might do. But then their recommendations ought
to express the true character from which they emanate. 3. They
seem to imply and certainly nourish the erronious idea of a national
religion. The idea just as it related to the Jewish nation under
a theocracy, having been improperly adopted by so many nations
which have embraced Xnity, is too apt to lurk in the bosoms even
of Americans, who in general are aware of the distinction between
religious & political societies. The idea also of a union
of all to form one nation under one Govt in acts of devotion
to the God of all is an imposing idea. But reason and the principles
of the Xn religion require that all the individuals composing
a nation even of the same precise creed & wished to unite
in a universal act of religion at the same time, the union ought
to be effected thro' the intervention of their religious not
of their political representatives. In a nation composed of various
sects, some alienated widely from others, and where no agreement
could take place thro' the former, the interposition of the latter
is doubly wrong: 4. The tendency of the practice, to narrow the
recommendation to the standard of the predominant sect. The Ist
proclamation of Genl Washington dated Jany 1. 1795 (see if this
was the 1st) recommending a day of thanksgiving, embraced all
who believed in a supreme ruler of the Universe. That of Mr.
Adams called for a Xn worship. Many private letters reproached
the Proclamations issued by J. M. for using general terms, used
in that of Presidt W--n; and some of them for not inserting particulars
according with the faith of certain Xn sects. The practice if
not strictly guarded naturally terminates in a conformity to
the creed of the majority and a single sect, if amounting to
a majority. 5. The last & not the least objection is the
liability of the practice to a subserviency to political views;
to the scandal of religion, as well as the increase of party
animosities. Candid or incautious politicians will not always
disown such views. In truth it is difficult to frame such a religious
Proclamation generally suggested by a political State of things,
without referring to them in terms having some bearing on party
questions. The Proclamation of Pres: W. which was issued just
after the suppression of the Insurrection in Penna and at a time
when the public mind was divided on several topics, was so construed
by many. Of this the Secretary of State himself, E. Randolph
seems to have had an anticipation.
The original draught of that Instrument
filed in the Dept. of State (see copies of these papers on the
files of J. M.) in the hand writing of Mr Hamilton the Secretary
of the Treasury. It appears that several slight alterations only
had been made at the suggestion of the Secretary of State; and
in a marginal note in his hand, it is remarked that "In
short this proclamation ought to savour as much as possible of
religion, & not too much of having a political object."
In a subjoined note in the hand of Mr. Hamilton, this remark
is answered by the counter-remark that "A proclamation of
a Government which is a national act, naturally embraces objects
which are political" so naturally, is the idea of policy
associated with religion, whatever be the mode or the occasion,
when a function of the latter is assumed by those in power.
During the administration of Mr Jefferson
no religious proclamation was issued. It being understood that
his successor was disinclined to such interpositions of the Executive
and by some supposed moreover that they might originate with
more propriety with the Legislative Body, a resolution was passed
requesting him to issue a proclamation. (see the resolution in
the Journals of Congress.
It was thought not proper to refuse a
compliance altogether; but a form & language were employed,
which were meant to deaden as much as possible any claim of political
right to enjoin religious observances by resting these expressly
on the voluntary compliance of individuals, and even by limiting
the recommendation to such as wished simultaneous as well as
voluntary performance of a religious act on the occasion.
Lenni Brenner,
editor of 51
Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis, can
be reached at BrennerL21@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
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Saul Landau
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William Blum
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William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
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Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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