The
thirteen States were afraid that the new Government they created might
become too powerful, as King George's government had been.
They insisted handcuffs be placed on the power of the Federal Government.
These were the First Ten Amendments or Bill of Rights, ratified DECEMBER 15, 1791.
The Preamble of the Bill of Rights stated:
"The States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction
or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and
restrictive clauses should be added...
RESOLVED...that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States..."
These were the First Ten Amendments or Bill of Rights, ratified DECEMBER 15, 1791.
The Amendments did not limit States or citizens, but the Federal Congress:
"
CONGRESS shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
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."
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Regarding this, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Samuel Miller, January 23, 1808:
"I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the
Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their
doctrines, discipline, or exercises.
This results not only
from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the
establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also
which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the U.S."
Jefferson continued:
"Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times
for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to
their own particular tenets."
The Constitution of the United States of America-Analysis and Interpretation,
prepared by the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of
Congress (Edward S. Corwin, editor, U.S. Government Printing Office,
Washington, 1953, p. 758), stated:
"In his
Commentaries on the Constitution,
1833, Justice Joseph Story asserted that the purpose of the First
Amendment was not to discredit the then existing State establishments
of religion,
but rather 'to exclude from the National Government all power to act on the subject.'"
John Bouvier's Law Dictionary, published in Philadelphia by the J.B. Lippincott Company, 1889, stated in its definition of Religion:
"The Constitution of the United States provides that 'Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof.'
This provision and that relating to religious tests are
limitations upon the power of the Congress only...
The Christian religion is, of course, recognized by the government,
yet...the preservation of religious liberty is left to the States."
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story explained in his
Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833:
"The whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the State governments, to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice and the State Constitutions."
Mercy Otis Warren wrote in
Observations on the new Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions, 1788:
"The origin of all power is in
the people, and they
have an incontestable right to check the creatures of their own creation."
President Dwight Eisenhower stated at a Governors' Conference, June 24, 1957:
"The
national government was itself the creature of the States...Yet today it is often made to appear that
the creature, Frankenstein-like, is determined to destroy the creators."
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