Are you trying to assert Jefferson wrote the Bill of Rights?
And huge pie on the face about the Constitution’s author (I realized after I posted) but it still does not discount what Jefferson aid about the 1st establishing a separation of church and state
No I had that wrong. I will assert that he is an authority on what they meant
But he is the authority on what the 1st amendment meant when they wrote it
James Madison
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.
Where do you get that?
Remember, the Bill of Rights serves a different purpose. Jefferson was certainly a proponent of doing so.
_The only problem with the above is, no such quote has ever been found among any of James Madison’s writings. None of the biographers of Madison, past or present have ever run across such a quote, and most if not all would love to know where this false quote originated. Apparently, David Barton did not check the work of the secondary sources he quotes._http://candst.tripod.com/misq1.htm
I will agree with that; “an” authority. One of many.
The private letter from Jefferson to the baptist church is also not part of the Constitution or BoR’s.
Ok. I should have checked closer. Your point.
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Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, “that Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.”2 The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, who enters into any subordinate Association, must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the General Authority; much more must every man who becomes a member of any particular Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no mans right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.3
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Because if Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people.4 The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.
From your linked quote it sure seems that he is saying it is up to every citizen to decide for their own
He is. And Sessions did.
While it sometimes sucks the Supreme Court’s interpretations of both are law
Are they?
10
Sessions is not allowed to decide that for others
He didn’t.
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He sure tried.
Those parents broke the law. Jesus would not approve.
Even though he was a ■■■■■■■ social revolutionary.
