The Historian

" I can not speak particularly of any of the cases excepting that of Virginia, where it is impossible to deny that Religion prevails with more zeal, and a more exemplary priesthood, than it ever did when established and patronized by Public authority. We are teaching the World the great truth, that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson, that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government." -James Madison to Edward Livingston, 1822 The misnomer that the Establishment Clause of the American Constitution allows the American Congress and U.S. Supreme Court the right to infringe on state religious establishment or non-establishment is contrary to the Constitution and the original framers to that document. The original framers, both Federalists and Anti-Federalists alike, adhered to a common understanding that religion was not the enemy of the republic, but rather, the sheer wil...