The First Amendment

Posted by Brian Tubbs Mar 28, 2007

Fisher Ames....ever heard of him? Probably not. Yet Fisher Ames is the congressman most responsible for the actual wording of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Other Founders who played a significant role in the amendment's wording were James Madison, the principal architect of the Constitution itself and the chief sponsor of the Bill of Rights in the First Congress, and George Mason, the Virginian whose words were an inspiration to Mr. Madison's proposed Bill of Rights. Mason's Virginia Constitution contained a bill of rights that Madison used as a model when presenting his proposed twelve amendments to the First Congress. (The First Congress sent 11 of the 12 proposed amendments to the states. Ten were ratified at that time - the other regarding congressional pay raises would be ratified in the late 20th century).

What did Fisher Ames, James Madison, George Mason, and the other Founding Fathers mean by these words: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."?

1. First, they meant CONGRESS. Not the state legislatures. Not the local School Board. Not the county board of supervisors or commissioners. Congress. Thus, until the mid-1800s, there were STATES who DID recognize religious establishments and denominational preferences. What changed?

After the Civil War, in order to protect the rights of minorities in mainly the southern states, Unionists pushed through the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. This effectively extended the Bill of Rights to the states. Since then, it has been understood that the States are also bound by the First Amendment prohibitions and protections.

2. Second, the Amendment says "no law." What does "no law" mean? Well, the key to understanding "no law" is to understand the OBJECT. In other words, Congress obviously passes LAWS all the time. It has to. That's the job of Congress. The First Amendment doesn't prohibit Congress from passing laws altogether. It prevents Congress from passing laws that....

3. ...."respect[s] an establishment of religion..." Congress (and, thanks to the Fourteenth Amendment, states and municipalities as well) cannot pass laws or statutes that respect an establishment of religion. What does that mean? First, "respecting" (the actual form of the word in the First Amendment) means "concerning" or "regarding." In other words, no law concerning or regarding an establishment of religion. What is an "establishment of religion." Simple. The government cannot establish a religion. No established religion. No state church. What did the Founders have in mind when they wrote this? EASY ANSWER: The Church of England. The American Founders did not want a Church of the United States.

4. The government is ALSO prohibited from passing any statute that will "prohibit the free exercise" of religion. Note that "free exercise" refers to the carrying out of one's beliefs - not merely a sideline BELIEF of one's faith. In other words, the government cannot stop a person from carrying out or participating in or publicly proclaiming his or her religious faith. The Founding Fathers would indeed find it objectionable that the state would move to stop a high school valedictorian from talking about her faith in Jesus Christ while giving her EARNED commencement speech. The Founding Fathers would be undoubtedly appalled that a school would bar a Bible study from meeting on school grounds, while allowing the chess club, Key Club, martial arts club, and any assortment of other activities from taking place on campus. The meaning is clear: The government should not move to stop the free exercise of one's religion.

5. When you bring in the remainder of the First Amendment...

"...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."

...it is also clear that the Founders embraced the right of religiously-minded people to participate in the public square with the same rights and privileges (speech, lobbying, organizing, petitions, press, etc) as anyone else.

In present-day society, there has been a trend on the part of many that the First Amendment protects people from being OFFENDED in their religious beliefs. In other words, an atheist or a Wiccan or a minority religious adherent has the right to feel comfortable in the public square - to not have their sensititives assailed - by the active participation of majority religious adherents. This has led to serious restrictions on religious exercise and religious speech, including student-led prayers at high school football games and commencement exercises. Indeed, the Bible has been ruled unconstitutional in public school classrooms.

Fisher Ames would find the latter difficult to accept. At one point in his life, he wrote: "[I]f these [new] books ... must be retained, as they will be, should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book?” But, hey, I guess Fisher Ames didn't really understand the First Amendment.

The truth is that it is we, in the modern age, who have lost our understanding of the First Amendment. The Founding Fathers never intended religion to be removed from the public square and they never intended for religious-based values to be set aside for fear of offending those who do not share those values. After all, George Washington (the man who presided over the Constitutional Convention and who, as President, presided over the approval of the First Amendment - but, what does he know, right?) said that "religion and morality" were "indispensable supports" to public society.