Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/330/1/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 14:40:59+00:00

Document:
Although the Establishment Clause does require governments to avoid excessive entanglement with religion, it is permissible for a state to reimburse the costs of transportation for students in parochial schools.
1. The expenditure of tax raised funds thus authorized was for a public purpose, and did not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 330 U. S. 5-8.
2. The statute and resolution did not violate the provision of the First Amendment (made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment) prohibiting any "law respecting an establishment of religion." Pp. 330 U. S. 8-18.
133 N.J.L. 350, 44 A.2d 333, affirmed.
In a suit by a taxpayer, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the state legislature was without power under the state constitution to authorize reimbursement to parents of bus fares paid for transporting their children to schools other than public schools. 132 N.J.L. 98, 39 A.2d 75. The New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals reversed, holding that neither the statute nor a resolution passed pursuant to it violated the state constitution or the provisions of the Federal Constitution in issue. 133 N.J.L. 350, 44 A.2d 333. On appeal of the federal questions to this Court, affirmed, p. 330 U. S. 18.
A New Jersey statute authorizes its local school districts to make rules and contracts for the transportation of children to and from schools. [Footnote 1] The appellee, a township board of education, acting pursuant to this statute, authorized reimbursement to parents of money expended by them for the bus transportation of their children on regular busses operated by the public transportation system. Part of this money was for the payment of transportation of some children in the community to Catholic parochial schools. These church schools give their students, in addition to secular education, regular religious instruction conforming to the religious tenets and modes of worship of the Catholic Faith. The superintendent of these schools is a Catholic priest.
contended that the statute and the resolution passed pursuant to it violated both the State and the Federal Constitutions. That court held that the legislature was without power to authorize such payment under the state constitution. 132 N.J.L. 98, 39 A.2d 75. The New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals reversed, holding that neither the statute nor the resolution passed pursuant to it was in conflict with the State constitution or the provisions of the Federal Constitution in issue. 133 N.J.L. 350, 44 A.2d 333. The case is here on appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 344(a).
transportation of any group of pupils, even those of a private school run for profit. [Footnote 3] Consequently, we put to one side the question as to the validity of the statute against the claim that it does not authorize payment for the transportation generally of school children in New Jersey.
purposes is framed in two phases. The first phase is that a state cannot tax A to reimburse B for the cost of transporting his children to church schools. This is said to violate the due process clause because the children are sent to these church schools to satisfy the personal desires of their parents, rather than the public's interest in the general education of all children. This argument, if valid, would apply equally to prohibit state payment for the transportation of children to any nonpublic school, whether operated by a church or any other nongovernment individual or group. But the New Jersey legislature has decided that a public purpose will be served by using tax raised funds to pay the bus fares of all school children, including those who attend parochial schools. The New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals has reached the same conclusion. The fact that a state law, passed to satisfy a public need, coincides with the personal desires of the individuals most directly affected is certainly an inadequate reason for us to say that a legislature has erroneously appraised the public need.
of the people. The Fourteenth Amendment did not strip the states of their power to meet problems previously left for individual solution. Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 96 U. S. 103-104; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 113 U. S. 31-32; Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112, 164 U. S. 157-158.
It is much too late to argue that legislation intended to facilitate the opportunity of children to get a secular education serves no public purpose. Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education, 281 U. S. 370; Holmes, J., in Interstate Ry. v. Massachusetts, 207 U. S. 79, 207 U. S. 87. See opinion of Cooley, J., in Stuart v. School District No. 1 of Kalamazoo, 30 Mich. 69 (1874). The same thing is no less true of legislation to reimburse needy parents, or all parents, for payment of the fares of their children so that they can ride in public busses to and from schools, rather than run the risk of traffic and other hazards incident to walking or "hitchhiking." See Barbier v. Connolly, supra, at 113 U. S. 31. See also cases collected 63 A.L.R. 413; 118 A.L.R. 806. Nor does it follow that a law has a private, rather than a public, purpose because it provides that tax-raised funds will be paid to reimburse individuals on account of money spent by them in a way which furthers a public program. See Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U. S. 495, 301 U. S. 518. Subsidies and loans to individuals such as farmers and home owners, and to privately owned transportation systems, as well as many other kinds of businesses, have been commonplace practices in our state and national history.
by law. This is the exact question raised by appellant's second contention, to consideration of which we now turn.
Second. The New Jersey statute is challenged as a "law respecting an establishment of religion." The First Amendment, as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth, Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, commands that a state "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . ." These words of the First Amendment reflected in the minds of early Americans a vivid mental picture of conditions and practices which they fervently wished to stamp out in order to preserve liberty for themselves and for their posterity. Doubtless their goal has not been entirely reached; but so far has the Nation moved toward it that the expression "law respecting an establishment of religion" probably does not so vividly remind present-day Americans of the evils, fears, and political problems that caused that expression to be written into our Bill of Rights. Whether this New Jersey law is one respecting an "establishment of religion" requires an understanding of the meaning of that language, particularly with respect to the imposition of taxes. Once again, [Footnote 4] therefore, it is not inappropriate briefly to review the background and environment of the period in which that constitutional language was fashioned and adopted.
this authority was accompanied by a repetition of many of the old-world practices and persecutions. Catholics found themselves hounded and proscribed because of their faith; Quakers who followed their conscience went to jail; Baptists were peculiarly obnoxious to certain dominant Protestant sects; men and women of varied faiths who happened to be in a minority in a particular locality were persecuted because they steadfastly persisted in worshipping God only as their own consciences dictated. [Footnote 7] And all of these dissenters were compelled to pay tithes and taxes [Footnote 8] to support government-sponsored churches whose ministers preached inflammatory sermons designed to strengthen and consolidate the established faith by generating a burning hatred against dissenters.
These practices became so commonplace as to shock the freedom-loving colonials into a feeling of abhorrence. [Footnote 9] The imposition of taxes to pay ministers' salaries and to build and maintain churches and church property aroused their indignation. [Footnote 10] It was these feelings which found expression in the First Amendment. No one locality and no one group throughout the Colonies can rightly be given entire credit for having aroused the sentiment that culminated in adoption of the Bill of Rights' provisions embracing religious liberty. But Virginia, where the established church had achieved a dominant influence in political affairs and where many excesses attracted wide public attention, provided a great stimulus and able leadership for the movement. The people there, as elsewhere, reached the conviction that individual religious liberty could be achieved best under a government which was stripped of all power to tax, to support, or otherwise to assist any or all religions, or to interfere with the beliefs of any religious individual or group.
a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either . . . ; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern. . . ."
"That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief. . . . [Footnote 14]"
"The structure of our government has, for the preservation of civil liberty, rescued the temporal institutions from religious interference. On the other hand, it has secured religious liberty from the invasion of the civil authority."
or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups, and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect "a wall of separation between church and State." Reynolds v. United States, supra, at 98 U. S. 164.
We must consider the New Jersey statute in accordance with the foregoing limitations imposed by the First Amendment. But we must not strike that state statute down if it is within the State's constitutional power, even though it approaches the verge of that power. See Interstate Ry. v. Massachusetts, Holmes, J., supra, at 207 U. S. 85, 207 U. S. 88. New Jersey cannot, consistently with the "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment, contribute tax raised funds to the support of an institution which teaches the tenets and faith of any church. On the other hand, other language of the amendment commands that New Jersey cannot hamper its citizens in the free exercise of their own religion. Consequently, it cannot exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Nonbelievers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other faith, because of their faith, or lack of it, from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation. While we do not mean to intimate that a state could not provide transportation only to children attending public schools, we must be careful, in protecting the citizens of New Jersey against state-established churches, to be sure that we do not inadvertently prohibit New Jersey from extending its general state law benefits to all its citizens without regard to their religious belief.
highways and sidewalks. Of course, cutting off church schools from these services so separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function would make it far more difficult for the schools to operate. But such is obviously not the purpose of the First Amendment. That Amendment requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and nonbelievers; it does not require the state to be their adversary. State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions than it is to favor them.
This Court has said that parents may, in the discharge of their duty under state compulsory education laws, send their children to a religious, rather than a public, school if the school meets the secular educational requirements which the state has power to impose. See Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 26 U. S. 510. It appears that these parochial schools meet New Jersey's requirements. The State contributes no money to the schools. It does not support them. Its legislation, as applied, does no more than provide a general program to help parents get their children, regardless of their religion, safely and expeditiously to and from accredited schools.
"Whenever in any district there are children living remote from any schoolhouse, the board of education of the district may make rules and contracts for the transportation of such children to and from school, including the transportation of school children to and from school other than a public school, except such school as is operated for profit in whole or in part."
"When any school district provides any transportation for public school children to and from school, transportation from any point in such established school route to any other point in such established school route shall be supplied to school children residing in such school district in going to and from school other than a public school, except such school as is operated for profit in whole or in part."
Appellant does not challenge the New Jersey statute or the resolution on the ground that either violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by excluding payment for the transportation of any pupil who attends a "private school run for profit." Although the township resolution authorized reimbursement only for parents of Public and Catholic school pupils, appellant does not allege, nor is there anything in the record which would offer the slightest support to an allegation, that there were any children in the township who attended or would have attended, but for want of transportation, any but public and Catholic schools. It will be appropriate to consider the exclusion of students of private schools operated for profit when and if it is proved to have occurred, is made the basis of a suit by one in a position to challenge it, and New Jersey's highest court has ruled adversely to the challenger. Striking down a state law is not a matter of such light moment that it should be done by a federal court ex mero motu on a postulate neither charged nor proved, but which rests on nothing but a possibility. Cf. Liverpool, N.Y. & P. S.S. Co. v. Comm'rs of Emigration, 113 U. S. 33, 113 U. S. 39.
"any provision thereof, shall be declared to be unconstitutional . . . in whole or in part, by a court of competent jurisdiction, such . . . article . . . shall, to the extent that it is not unconstitutional, . . . be enforced. . . ."
"Since we hold that the legislature may appropriate general state funds or authorize the use of local funds for the transportation of pupils to any school, we conclude that such authorization of the use of local funds is likewise authorized by Pamph.L. 1941, ch.191, and R.S. 18:7-78."
See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 98 U. S. 162; cf. Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U. S. 41, 178 U. S. 89, 106.
See, e.g., Macaulay, History of England (1849) I, cc. 2, 4; The Cambridge Modern History (1908) V, cc. V, IX, XI; Beard, Rise of American Civilization (1933) I, 60; Cobb, Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902) c. II; Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (1939) c. II; Sweet, Religion in Colonial America (1942) 320-322.
"patronage and advowsons of all the churches and chapels . . . together with licence and power to build and found churches, chapels and oratories . . . and to cause them to be dedicated and consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of our kingdom of England."
"the Patronages, and Advowsons of all Churches which . . . shall happen to be built, together with Licence and Faculty of erecting and founding Churches, Chapels, and Places of Worship . . . and of causing the same to be dedicated and consecrated according to the Ecclesiastical Laws of our Kingdom of England, with all, and singular such, and as ample lights, Jurisdictions, Privileges, . . . as any Bishop . . . in our Kingdom of England, ever . . . hath had. . . ."
"And above all things We do by these presents will, require and comand our said Councill to take all possible care for ye discountenancing of vice and encouraging of virtue and good living, and that, by such examples ye infidle may be invited and desire to partake of ye Christian Religion, and for ye greater ease and satisfaction of ye sd loving subjects in matters of religion, We do hereby require and comand yt liberty of conscience shall be allowed unto all protestants; yt such especially as shall be conformable to ye rites of ye Church of Engd shall be particularly countenanced and encouraged."
See, e.g., Semple, Baptists in Virginia (1894); Sweet, Religion in Colonial America, supra, at 131-152, 322-339.
Almost every colony exacted some kind of tax for church support. See e.g. Cobb, op. cit. supra, note 5 110 (Virginia); 131 (North Carolina); 169 (Massachusetts); 270 (Connecticut); 304, 310, 339 (New York); 386 (Maryland); 295 (New Hampshire).
"That diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some. . . . This vexes me the worst of anything whatever. There are at this time in the adjacent country not less than five or six well meaning men in close jail for publishing their religious sentiments, which in the main are very orthodox. I have neither patience to hear, talk, or think of anything relative to this matter; for I have squabbled and scolded, abused and ridiculed, so long about it to little purpose, that I am without common patience. So I must beg you to pity me, and pray for liberty of conscience to all."
Virginia's resistance to taxation for church support was crystallized in the famous "Parsons' Cause" argued by Patrick Henry in 1763. For an account, see Cobb, op. cit. supra, note 5 108-111.
"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."
For accounts of background and evolution of the Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty see, e.g., James, The Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia (1900); Thom, The Struggle for Religious Freedom in Virginia: The Baptists (1900); Cobb, op. cit. supra, note 5 74-115; Madison, Monopolies, Perpetuities Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments, op. cit. supra, note 12 554, 556.
Permoli v. New Orleans, 3 How. 589. Cf. 32 U. S. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243.
Test provisions forbade officeholders to "deny . . . the truth of the Protestant religion," e.g., Constitution of North Carolina (1776) § XXXII, II Poore, supra, 1413. Maryland permitted taxation for support of the Christian religion and limited civil office to Christians until 1818, id. I, 819, 820, 832.
See Note 50 Yale L.J. (1941) 917; see also cases collected 14 L.R.A. 418; 5 A.L.R. 8, 9; 141 A.L.R. 1148.
Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch 43; Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679; Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333; cf. Reynolds v. United States, supra, 98 U. S. 162; Reuben Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U. S. 50.
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413; Largent v. Texas, 318 U. S. 418; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, supra; West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624; Follett v. McCormick, 321 U. S. 573; Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501. Cf. Bradfield v. Roberts, 175 U. S. 291.
Harmon v. Dreher, Speer's Equity Reports (S.C. 1843), 87, 120.
New Jersey long ago permitted public utilities to charge school children reduced rates. See Public S. R. Co. v. Public Utility Comm'rs, 81 N. J L. 363, 80 A. 27 (1911); see also Interstate Ry. v. Massachusetts, supra. The District of Columbia Code requires that the new charter of the District public transportation company provide a three-cent fare "for school children . . . going to and from public, parochial, or like schools. . . ." 47 Stat. 752, 759.
will ne'er consent,' -- consented."
"legislation, as applied, does no more than provide a general program to help parents get their children, regardless of their religion, safely and expeditiously to and from accredited schools,"
taxpayer's money. All school children are left to ride as ordinary paying passengers on the regular busses operated by the public transportation system. What the Township does, and what the taxpayer complains of, is, at stated intervals, to reimburse parents for the fares paid, provided the children attend either public schools or Catholic Church schools. This expenditure of tax funds has no possible effect on the child's safety or expedition in transit. As passengers on the public busses, they travel as fast, and no faster, and are as safe, and no safer, since their parents are reimbursed, as before.
and resolution brought to us by this case, children are classified according to the schools they attend, and are to be aided if they attend the public schools or private Catholic schools, and they are not allowed to be aided if they attend private secular schools or private religious schools of other faiths.
to citizens by the Constitution of the United States. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624. One of our basic rights is to be free of taxation to support a transgression of the constitutional command that the authorities "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . ." U.S.Const., Amend. I; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296.
"1215. Catholic children are to be educated in schools where not only nothing contrary to Catholic faith and morals is taught, but rather in schools where religious and moral training occupy the first place. . . . (Canon 1372.)"
"1216. In every elementary school, the children must, according to their age, be instructed in Christian doctrine."
"The young people who attend the higher schools are to receive a deeper religious knowledge, and the bishops shall appoint priests qualified for such work by their learning and piety. (Canon 1373.)"
to prevent loss of faith, it may be tolerated that Catholic children go to such schools. (Canon 1374.)"
"1224. The religious teaching of youth in any schools is subject to the authority and inspection of the Church."
"The local Ordinaries have the right and duty to watch that nothing is taught contrary to faith or good morals in any of the schools of their territory."
"They, moreover, have the right to approve the books of Christian doctrine and the teachers of religion, and to demand, for the sake of safeguarding religion and morals, the removal of teachers and books. (Canon 1381.)"
the premise that secular education can be isolated from all religious teaching, so that the school can inculcate all needed temporal knowledge and also maintain a strict and lofty neutrality as to religion. The assumption is that, after the individual has been instructed in worldly wisdom, he will be better fitted to choose his religion. Whether such a disjunction is possible, and, if possible, whether it is wise, are questions I need not try to answer.
it provides that tax raised funds will be paid to reimburse individuals on account of money spent by them in a way which furthers a public program. See Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U. S. 495, 301 U. S. 518."
while going to and coming from other schools, and firemen shall extinguish a blaze in public or Catholic school buildings, but shall not put out a blaze in Protestant Church schools or private schools operated for profit? That is the true analogy to the case we have before us, and I should think it pretty plain that such a scheme would not be valid.
keep religion's hands off the state, and, above all, to keep bitter religious controversy out of public life by denying to every denomination any advantage from getting control of public policy or the public purse. Those great ends, I cannot but think, are immeasurably compromised by today's decision.
This policy of our Federal Constitution has never been wholly pleasing to most religious groups. They all are quick to invoke its protections; they all are irked when they feel its restraints. This Court has gone a long way, if not an unreasonable way, to hold that public business of such paramount importance as maintenance of public order, protection of the privacy of the home, and taxation may not be pursued by a state in a way that even indirectly will interfere with religious proselyting. See dissent in Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157, 319 U. S. 166; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105; Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141; Jones v. Opelika, 316 U. S. 584, reversed on rehearing, 319 U. S. 103.
declared that "It is hardly lack of due process for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizes." Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 317 U. S. 131.
* See Cubberley, Public Education in the United States (1934) ch. VI; Knight, Education in the United States (1941) ch. VIII.
"Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; . . . that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; . . . ."
"We, the General Assembly, do enact, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief. . . . [Footnote 2/1] "
I cannot believe that the great author of those words, or the men who made them law, could have joined in this decision. Neither so high nor so impregnable today as yesterday is the wall raised between church and state by Virginia's great statute of religious freedom and the First Amendment, now made applicable to all the states by the Fourteenth. [Footnote 2/2] New Jersey's statute sustained is the first, if indeed it is not the second, breach to be made by this Court's action. That a third, and a fourth, and still others will be attempted we may be sure. For just as Cochran v. Board of Education, 281 U. S. 370, has opened the way by oblique ruling [Footnote 2/3] for this decision, so will the two make wider the breach for a third. Thus, with time, the most solid freedom steadily gives way before continuing corrosive decision.
This case forces us to determine squarely for the first time [Footnote 2/4] what was "an establishment of religion" in the First Amendment's conception, and by that measure to decide whether New Jersey's action violates its command. The facts may be stated shortly, to give setting and color to the constitutional problem.
of the four private schools, as appears affirmatively by the testimony of the superintendent of parochial schools in the Diocese of Trenton.
Not simply an established church, but any law respecting an establishment of religion, is forbidden. The Amendment was broadly, but not loosely, phrased. It is the compact and exact summation of its author's views formed during his long struggle for religious freedom. In Madison's own words characterizing Jefferson's Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, the guaranty he put in our national charter, like the bill he piloted through the Virginia Assembly, was "a Model of technical precision, and perspicuous brevity." [Footnote 2/8] Madison could not have confused "church" and "religion," or "an established church" and "an establishment of religion."
spheres of religious activity and civil authority by comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for religion. In proof, the Amendment's wording and history unite with this Court's consistent utterances whenever attention has been fixed directly upon the question.
literature, has been given "the same high estate under the First Amendment as . . . worship in the churches and preaching from the pulpits." [Footnote 2/10] And on this basis, parents have been held entitled to send their children to private religious schools. Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510. Accordingly, daily religious education commingled with secular is "religion" within the guaranty's comprehensive scope. So are religious training and teaching in whatever form. The word connotes the broadest content, determined not by the form or formality of the teaching or where it occurs, but by its essential nature, regardless of those details.
was the direct culmination. [Footnote 2/12] In the documents of the times, particularly of Madison, who was leader in the Virginia struggle before he became the Amendment's sponsor, but also in the writings of Jefferson and others and in the issues which engendered them is to be found irrefutable confirmation of the Amendment's sweeping content.
expressly condemn the existing Virginia establishment. [Footnote 2/14] But the forces supporting it were then too strong.
sponsor. [Footnote 2/16] Enactment failed in successive legislatures from its introduction in June, 1779, until its adoption in January, 1786. But, during all this time, the fight for religious freedom moved forward in Virginia on various fronts with growing intensity. Madison led throughout, against Patrick Henry's powerful opposing leadership until Henry was elected governor in November, 1784.
to lose sight of what he and his coworkers had in mind when, by a single sweeping stroke of the pen, they forbade an establishment of religion and secured its free exercise, the text of the Remonstrance is appended at the end of this opinion for its wider current reference, together with a copy of the bill against which it was directed.
The Remonstrance, stirring up a storm of popular protest, killed the Assessment Bill. [Footnote 2/22] It collapsed in committee shortly before Christmas, 1785. With this, the way was cleared at last for enactment of Jefferson's Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom. Madison promptly drove it through in January of 1786, seven years from the time it was first introduced. This dual victory substantially ended the fight over establishments, settling the issue against them. See note 33.
either to restrain or to support. [Footnote 2/28] Denial or abridgment of religious freedom was a violation of rights both of conscience and of natural equality. State aid was no less obnoxious or destructive to freedom and to religion itself than other forms of state interference. "Establishment" and "free exercise" were correlative and coextensive ideas, representing only different facets of the single great and fundamental freedom. The Remonstrance, following the Virginia statute's example, referred to the history of religious conflicts and the effects of all sorts of establishments, current and historical, to suppress religion's free exercise. With Jefferson, Madison believed that to tolerate any fragment of establishment would be by so much to perpetuate restraint upon that freedom. Hence, he sought to tear out the institution not partially, but root and branch, and to bar its return forever.
Tithes had been the lifeblood of establishment before and after other compulsions disappeared. Madison and his coworkers made no exceptions or abridgments to the complete separation they created. Their objection was not to small tithes. It was to any tithes whatsoever. "If it were lawful to impose a small tax for religion, the admission would pave the way for oppressive levies." [Footnote 2/30] Not the amount, but "the principle of assessment, was wrong." And the principle was as much to prevent "the interference of law in religion" as to restrain religious intervention in political matters. [Footnote 2/31] In this field, the authors of our freedom would not tolerate "the first experiment on our liberties" or "wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents." Remonstrance, Par. 3. Nor should we.
In view of this history, no further proof is needed that the Amendment forbids any appropriation, large or small, from public funds to aid or support any and all religious exercises. But if more were called for, the debates in the First Congress and this Court's consistent expressions, whenever it has touched on the matter directly, [Footnote 2/32] supply it.
Compulsory attendance upon religious exercises went out early in the process of separating church and state, together with forced observance of religious forms and ceremonies. [Footnote 2/36] Test oaths and religious qualification for office followed later. [Footnote 2/37] These things none devoted to our great tradition of religious liberty would think of bringing back. Hence, today, apart from efforts to inject religious training or exercises and sectarian issues into the public schools, the only serious surviving threat to maintaining that complete and permanent separation of religion and civil power which the First Amendment commands is through use of the taxing power to support religion, religious establishments, or establishments having a religious foundation, whatever their form or special religious function.
of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves" is the forbidden exaction, and the prohibition is absolute for whatever measure brings that consequence and whatever amount may be sought or given to that end.
the inadequacy of public or secular education and the necessity for sending the child to a school where religion is taught. But whatever may be the philosophy or its justification, there is undeniably an admixture of religious with secular teaching in all such institutions. That is the very reason for their being. Certainly, for purposes of constitutionality, we cannot contradict the whole basis of the ethical and educational convictions of people who believe in religious schooling.
items composing the total burden. Now, as always, the core of the educational process is the teacher-pupil relationship. Without this, the richest equipment and facilities would go for naught. See Judd v. Board of Education, 278 N.Y. 200, 212, 15 N.E.2d 576, 582. But the proverbial Mark Hopkins conception no longer suffices for the country's requirements. Without buildings, without equipment, without library, textbooks and other materials, and without transportation to bring teacher and pupil together in such an effective teaching environment, there can be not even the skeleton of what our times require. Hardly can it be maintained that transportation is the least essential of these items, or that it does not, in fact, aid, encourage, sustain and support, just as they do, the very process which is its purpose to accomplish. No less essential is it, or the payment of its cost, than the very teaching in the classroom or payment of the teacher's sustenance. Many types of equipment, now considered essential, better could be done without.
realm, such a line can be no valid constitutional measure. Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516. [Footnote 2/41] Now, as in Madison's time, not the amount, but the principle, of assessment is wrong. Remonstrance, Par. 3.
These things are beside the real question. They have no possible materiality except to obscure the all-pervading, inescapable issue. Cf. Cochran v. Board of Education, supra. Stripped of its religious phase, the case presents no substantial federal question. Ibid. The public function argument, by casting the issue in terms of promoting the general cause of education and the welfare of the individual, ignores the religious factor and its essential connection with the transportation, thereby leaving out the only vital element in the case. So, of course, do the "public welfare" and "social legislation" ideas, for they come to the same thing.
and courts to sustain, appropriations only when it can be found that, in fact, they do not aid, promote, encourage or sustain religious teaching or observances, be the amount large or small. No such finding has been or could be made in this case. The Amendment has removed this form of promoting the public welfare from legislative and judicial competence to make a public function. It is exclusively a private affair.
"destroy that moderation and harmony which the forbearance of our laws to intermeddle with Religion, has produced amongst its several sects."
at the very threshold of departure from the principle. Id., Par. 3, 9, 11.
The majority here does not accept, in terms, any of those views. But neither does it deny that the individual or the school, or indeed both, are benefited directly and substantially. [Footnote 2/51] To do so would cut the ground from under the public function/social legislation thesis. On the contrary, the opinion concedes that the children are aided by being helped to get to the religious schooling. By converse necessary implication, as well as by the absence of express denial, it must be taken to concede also that the school is helped to reach the child with its religious teaching. The religious enterprise is common to both, as is the interest in having transportation for its religious purposes provided.
Notwithstanding the recognition that this two-way aid is given, and the absence of any denial that religious teaching is thus furthered, the Court concludes that the aid so given is not "support" of religion. It is, rather, only support of education as such, without reference to its religious content, and thus becomes public welfare legislation. To this elision of the religious element from the case is added gloss in two respects, one that the aid extended partakes of the nature of a safety measure, the other that failure to provide it would make the state unneutral in religious matters, discriminating against or hampering such children concerning public benefits all others receive.
As will be noted, the one gloss is contradicted by the facts of record, and the other is of whole cloth with the "public function" argument's excision of the religious factor. [Footnote 2/52] But most important is that this approach, if valid, supplies a ready method for nullifying the Amendment's guaranty not only for this case and others involving small grants in aid for religious education, but equally for larger ones. The only thing needed will be for the Court again to transplant the "public welfare/public function" view from its proper nonreligious due process bearing to First Amendment application, holding that religious education is not "supported," though it may be aided, by the appropriation, and that the cause of education generally is furthered by helping the pupil to secure that type of training.
"the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only . . . for the support of any one [religious] establishment, may force him"
"either . . . we must say, that the will of the Legislature is the only measure of their authority, and that, in the plenitude of this authority, they may sweep away all our fundamental rights, or that they are bound to leave this particular right untouched and sacred."
man and his God. It should be kept inviolately private, not "entangled . . . in precedents" [Footnote 2/54] or confounded with what legislatures legitimately may take over into the public domain.
state to give or aid him in securing the religious instruction he seeks.
of whatever faith, [Footnote 2/55] yet, in the light of our tradition, it could not stand. For then, the adherent of one creed still would pay for the support of another, the childless taxpayer with others more fortunate. Then too there would seem to be no bar to making appropriations for transportation and other expenses of children attending public or other secular schools, after hours in separate places and classes for their exclusively religious instruction. The person who embraces no creed also would be forced to pay for teaching what he does not believe. Again, it was the furnishing of "contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves" that the fathers outlawed. That consequence and effect are not removed by multiplying to all-inclusiveness the sects for which support is exacted. The Constitution requires not comprehensive identification of state with religion, but complete separation.
Needless to add, we have no such case as Green v. Frazier, 253 U. S. 233, or Carmichael v. Southern Coal Co., 301 U. S. 495, which dealt with matters wholly unrelated to the First Amendment, involving only situations where the "public function" issue was determinative.
who attend private, profit-making schools. [Footnote 2/58] I cannot assume, as does the majority, that the New Jersey courts would write off this explicit limitation from the statute. Moreover, the resolution by which the statute was applied expressly limits its benefits to students of public and Catholic schools. [Footnote 2/59] There is no showing that there are no other private or religious schools in this populous district. [Footnote 2/60] I do not think it can be assumed there were none. [Footnote 2/61] But, in the view I have taken, it is unnecessary to limit grounding to these matters.
"A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom," enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, January 19, 1786. See 1 Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (1858) 219-220; XII Hening's Statutes of Virginia (1823) 84.
Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 323 U. S. 530.
The briefs did not raise the First Amendment issue. The only one presented was whether the state's action involved a public or an exclusively private function under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See 330 U. S. infra. On the facts, the cost of transportation here is inseparable from both religious and secular teaching at the religious school. In the Cochran case, the state furnished secular textbooks only. But see text, infra at note 40 et seq., and 330 U. S.
Cf. note 3 and text, 330 U. S. see also note 35.
"Whenever in any district there are children living remote from any schoolhouse, the board of education of the district may make rules and contracts for the transportation of such children to and from school . . . other than a public school, except such school as is operated for profit in whole or in part."
The public schools attended were the Trenton Senior High School, the Trenton Junior High School, and the Pennington High School. Ewing Township itself provides no public high schools, affording only elementary public schools which stop with the eighth grade. The Ewing school board pays for both transportation and tuitions of pupils attending the public high schools. The only private schools, all Catholic, covered in application of the resolution are St. Mary's Cathedral High School, Trenton Catholic Boys High School, and two elementary parochial schools, St. Hedwig's Parochial School and St. Francis School. The Ewing board pays only for transportation to these schools, not for tuitions. So far as the record discloses, the board does not pay for or provide transportation to any other elementary school, public or private. See notes 58, 59 and text infra.
IX Writings of James Madison (ed. by Hunt, 1910) 288; Padover, Jefferson (1942) 74. Madison's characterization related to Jefferson's entire revision of the Virginia Code, of which the Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom was part. See note 15.
See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145; Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333; Mormon Church v. United States, 136 U. S. 1; Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158; also Cleveland v. United States, 329 U. S. 14.
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 319 U. S. 109; Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141; Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413; Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501; Tucker v. Texas, 326 U. S. 517.
Conflicts in other states, and earlier in the colonies, contributed much to generation of the Amendment, but none so directly as that in Virginia or with such formative influence on the Amendment's content and wording. See Cobb, Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902); Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (1939). The Charter of Rhode Island of 1663, II Poore, Constitutions (1878) 1595, was the first colonial charter to provide for religious freedom.
See Brant, c. XII, particularly at 243. Cf. Madison's Remonstrance, Appendix to this opinion. Jefferson, of course, held the same view. See note 15.
See Brant, 245-246. Madison quoted liberally from the Declaration in his Remonstrance, and the use made of the quotations indicates that he considered the Declaration to have outlawed the prevailing establishment in principle, if not technically.
Jefferson was chairman of the revising committee and chief draftsman. Co-revisers were Wythe, Pendleton, Mason and Lee. The first enacted portion of the revision, which became known as Jefferson's Code, was the statute barring entailments. Primogeniture soon followed. Much longer the author was to wait for enactment of the Bill for Religious Freedom, and not until after his death was the corollary bill to be accepted in principle which he considered most important of all, namely, to provide for common education at public expense. See V Jefferson, 153. However, he linked this with disestablishment as corollary prime parts in a system of basic freedoms. I Jefferson, 78.
"Yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that, if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right."
Madison regarded this action as desertion. See his letter to Monroe of April 12, 175; II Madison, 129, 131-132; James, cc. X, XI. But see Eckenrode, 91, suggesting it was surrender to the inevitable.
"That for every sum so paid, the Sheriff or Collector shall give a receipt, expressing therein to what society of Christians the person from whom he may receive the same shall direct the money to be paid. . . ."
"all sums which . . . may not he appropriated by the person paying the same . . . into the public Treasury, to be disposed of under the direction of the General Assembly, for the encouragement of seminaries of learning within the Counties whence such sums shall arise, and to no other use or purpose whatsoever."
II Madison, 183; and the Appendix to this opinion. Eckenrode, 100 ff. See also Fleet, Madison's "Detached Memoranda" (1946) III William & Mary Q. (3rd Series) 534, 554-562.
The major causes assigned for its defeat include the elevation of Patrick Henry to the governorship in November of 1784; the blunder of the proponents in allowing the Bill for Incorporations to come to the floor and incur defeat before the Assessment Bill was acted on; Madison's astute leadership, taking advantage of every "break" to convert his initial minority into a majority, including the deferment of action on the third reading to the fall; the Remonstrance, bringing a flood of protesting petitions, and the general poverty of the time. See Eckenrode, c. V, for an excellent short, detailed account.
See James, Brant, op. cit. supra, note 11.
Brant, 250. The assurance made first to his constituents was responsible for Madison's becoming a member of the Virginia Convention which ratified the Constitution. See James, 154-158.
See text of the Remonstrance, Appendix; also notes 13, 15, 24, 25 supra, and text.
"The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinance of the Govt. from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order & protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others."
"Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties . . . , [t]he freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that . . . the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?"
"Because the bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious truth or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretention falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world; the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation."
As is pointed out above, note 3, and in 330 U. S. infra, Cochran v. Board of Education, 281 U. S. 370, was not such a case.
"This act, in effect, destroyed the establishment. Many dates have been given for its end, but it really came on January 1, 1777, when the act suspending the payment of tithes became effective. This was not seen at the time. . . . But, in freeing almost half of the taxpayers from the burden of the state religion, the state religion was at an end. Nobody could be forced to support it, and an attempt to levy tithes upon Anglicans alone would be to recruit the ranks of dissent."
"that he feared . . . that the words might be taken in such latitude as to be extremely hurtful to the cause of religion. He understood the amendment to mean what had been expressed by the gentleman from Virginia, but others might find it convenient to put another construction upon it. The ministers of their congregations to the Eastward were maintained by the contributions of those who belonged to their society; the expense of building meeting-houses was contributed in the same manner. These things were regulated by by laws. If an action was brought before a Federal Court on any of these cases, the person who had neglected to perform his engagements could not be compelled to do it, for a support of ministers or building of places of worship might be construed into a religious establishment."
"it is hereby declared to be the settled policy of the Government to hereafter make no appropriation whatever for education in any sectarian school."
210 U.S. at 210 U. S. 79. Cf. Ponce v. Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, 210 U. S. 296, 210 U. S. 322. And see Bradfield v. Roberts, 175 U. S. 291, an instance of highly artificial grounding to support a decision sustaining an appropriation for the care of indigent patients pursuant to a contract with a private hospital. Cf. also the authorities cited in note 9.
" . . . but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Const., Art. VI, § 3. See also the two forms prescribed for the President's Oath or Affirmation. Const., Art. II, § 1. Cf. 71 U. S. 4 Wall. 333; Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277; United States v. Lovett, 328 U. S. 303.
". . . even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards which, ceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind. . . ."
". . . the fundamental division of the education of the whole self into the secular and the religious could not be justified on the grounds of either a sound educational philosophy or a modern functional concept of the relation of religion to personal and social experience."
It would seem a strange ruling that a "reasonable," that is, presumably a small, license fee cannot be placed upon the exercise of the right of religious instruction, yet that, under the correlative constitutional guaranty against "an establishment," taxes may be levied and used to aid and promote religious instruction, if only the amounts so used are small. See notes 30-31 supra, and text.
"Distant as it may be, in its present form, from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last, in the career of intolerance."
If it is part of the state's function to supply to religious schools or their patrons the smaller items of educational expense, because the legislature may say they perform a public function, it is hard to see why the larger ones also my not he paid. Indeed, it would seem even more proper and necessary for the state to do this. For if one class of expenditures is justified on the ground that it supports the general cause of education or benefits the individual, or can he made to do so by legislative declaration, so even more certainly would he the other. To sustain payment for transportation to school, for textbooks, for other essential materials, or perhaps for school lunches, and not for what makes all these things effective for their intended end, would be to make a public function of the smaller items and their cumulative effect, but to make wholly private in character the larger things without which the smaller could have no meaning or use.
"Whereas the general diffusion of Christian knowledge hath a natural tendency to correct the morals of men, restrain their vices, and preserve the peace of society, which cannot be effected without a competent provision for learned teachers, who may be thereby enabled to devote their time and attention to the duty of instructing such citizens, as, from their circumstances and want of education, cannot otherwise attain such knowledge, and it is judged that such provision may be made by the Legislature, without counteracting the liberal principle heretofore adopted and intended to be preserved by abolishing all distinctions of preeminence amongst the different societies of communities of Christians; . . . ."
"Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world. . . . Because the establishment in question is not necessary for the support of Civil Government. . . . What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? . . . [I]n no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people."
"Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation."
"At least let warning be taken at the first fruits of the threatened innovation. The very appearance of the Bill has transformed that 'Christian forbearance, love and charity' which, of late, mutually prevailed into animosities and jealousies which may not soon be appeased."
In this case, briefs amici curiae have been filed on behalf of various organizations representing three religious sects, one labor union, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the states of Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan and New York. All these states have laws similar to New Jersey's, and all of them, with one religious sect, support the constitutionality of New Jersey's action. The others oppose it. Maryland and Mississippi have sustained similar legislation. Note 49 infra. No state without legislation of this sort has filed an opposing brief. But at least six states have held such action invalid, namely, Delaware, Oklahoma, New York, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin. Note 49, infra. The New York ruling was overturned by amendment to the state constitution in 1938. Constitution of New York, Art. XI, 4.
See the authorities cited in note 49, and see note 54.
Some state courts have sustained statutes granting free transportation or free school books to children attending denominational schools on the theory that the aid as a benefit to the child, rather than to the school. See Nichols v. Henry, 301 Ky. 434, 191 S.W.2d 930, with which compare Sherrard v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 294 Ky. 469, 171 S.W.2d 963; Cochran v. Board of Education, 168 La. 1030, 123 So. 664, aff'd, 281 U. S. 281 U.S. 370; Borden v. Board of Education, 168 La. 1005, 123 So. 655; Board of Education v. Wheat, 174 Md. 314, 199 A. 628; Adams v. St. Mary's County, 180 Md. 550, 26 A.2d 377; Chance v. State Textbook R. & P. Board, 190 Miss. 453, 200 So. 706. See also Bowker v. Baer, 73 Cal.App.2d 653, 167 P.2d 256. Other courts have held such statutes unconstitutional under state constitutions as aid to the schools. Judd v. Board of Education, 278 N.Y. 200, 15 N.E.2d 576, but see note 47, supra; Smith v. Donahue, 202 App.Div. 656, 195 N.Y.S. 715; State ex rel. Traub v. Brown, 36 Del. 181, 172 A. 835; Gurney v. Ferguson, 190 Okla. 254, 122 P.2d 1002; Mitchell v. Consolidated School District, 17 Wash.2d 61, 135 P.2d 79; Van Straten v. Milquet, 180 Wis. 109, 192 N.W. 392. And cf. Hlebanja v. Brewe, 58 S.D. 351, 236 N.W. 296. And since many state constitutions have provisions forbidding the appropriation of public funds for private purposes, in these and other cases, the issue whether the statute was for a "public" or "private" purpose has been present. See Note (1941) 50 Yale L.J. 917, 925.
E.g, Gurney v. Ferguson, 190 Okla. 254, 255, 122 P.2d 1002, 1003; Mitchell v. Consolidated School District, 17 Wash.2d 61, 68, 135 P.2d 79, 82; Smith v. Donahue, 202 App.Div. 656, 664, 195 N.Y.S. 715, 722; Board of Education v. Wheat, 174 Md. 314, dissenting opinion at 340, 199 A. 628 at 639. This is true whether the appropriation and payment are in form to the individual, or to the institution. Ibid. Questions of this gravity turn upon the purpose and effect of the state's expenditure to accomplish the forbidden object, not upon who receives the amount and applies it to that end or the form and manner of the payment.
See also note 46 supra, and Remonstrance, Par. 3.
Thus, each brief filed here by the supporters of New Jersey's action, see note 47, not only relies strongly on Cochran v. Board of Education, 281 U. S. 370, but either explicitly or in effect maintains that it is controlling in the present case.
See text at notes 17-19 supra, and authorities cited; also Foote, Sketches of Virginia (1850) c. XV. Madison's entire thesis, as reflected throughout the Remonstrance and in his other writings, as well as in his opposition to the final form of the Assessment Bill, see note 43, was altogether incompatible with acceptance of general and "nondiscriminatory" support. See Brant, c. XII.
". . . it would be unjust to our people, and dangerous to our institutions, to apply any portion of the revenues of the nation, or of the States, to the support of sectarian schools. The separation of the Church and the State in everything relating to taxation should be absolute."
Neither do we have here a case of ratemaking by which a public utility extends reduced fares to all school children, including patrons of religious schools. Whether or not legislative compulsion upon a private utility to extend such an and advantage would be valid, or its extension by a municipally owned system, we are not required to consider. In the former instance, at any rate, and generally, if not always, in the latter, the vice of using the taxing power to raise funds for the support of religion would not be present.
"The transportation committee recommended the transportation of pupils of Ewing to the Trenton and Pennington High Schools and Catholic Schools by way of public carrier as in recent years. On Motion of Mr. Ralph Ryan and Mr. M. French. the same was adopted."
(Emphasis added.) The New Jersey court's holding that the resolution was within the authority conferred by the state statute is binding on us. Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U. S. 171, 237 U. S. 176; Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394, 239 U. S. 414.
In Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 323 U. S. 530, it was said that the preferred place given in our scheme to the great democratic freedoms secured by the First Amendment gives them "a sanctity and a sanction not permitting dubious intrusions." Cf. Remonstrance, Par. 3, 9. And, in other cases, it has been held that the usual presumption of constitutionality will not work to save such legislative excursions in this field. United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 304 U. S. 152, note 4; see Wechsler, Stone and the Constitution (1946) 46 Col.L.Rev. 764, 795 et seq.
1. 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." [Footnote 3/1] 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 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 Governor 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 man's 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.
2. 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 coordinate 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 may be invariably maintained, but, more especially, that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. 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.
only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?
4. Because the bill violates that equality which ought to be the basis of every law, and which is more indispensable in proportion as the validity or expediency of any law is more liable to be impeached. If "all men are, by nature, equally free and independent," [Footnote 3/2] all men are to be considered as entering into Society on equal conditions; as relinquishing no more, and therefore retaining no less, one than another, of their natural rights. Above all are they to be considered as retaining an "equal title to the free exercise of Religion according to the dictates of conscience." [Footnote 3/3] Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man. To God, therefore, not to men, must an account of it be rendered. As the Bill violates equality by subjecting some to peculiar burdens, so it violates the same principle by granting to others peculiar exemptions. Are the Quakers and Menonists the only sects who think a compulsive support of their religions unnecessary and unwarrantable? Can their piety alone be intrusted with the care of public worship? Ought their Religions to be endowed above all others, with extraordinary privileges by which proselytes may be enticed from all others? We think too favorably of the justice and good sense of these denominations to believe that they either covet preeminencies over their fellow citizens or that they will be seduced by them from the common opposition to the measure.
5. Because the bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious truth or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages and throughout the world. The second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.
6. Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world; it is a contradiction to fact, for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms, for a Religion not invented by human policy must have preexisted and been supported before it was established by human policy. It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of its Author, and to foster in those who still reject it a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits.
to its incorporation with Civil policy. Propose a restoration of this primitive state in which its Teachers depended on the voluntary rewards of their flocks; many of them predict its downfall. On which side ought their testimony to have greatest weight, when for or when against their interest?
8. Because the establishment in question is not necessary for the support of Civil Government. If it be urged as necessary for the support of Civil Government only as it is a means of supporting Religion, and it be not necessary for the latter purpose, it cannot be necessary for the former. If Religion be not within [the] cognizance of Civil Government, how can its legal establishment be said to be necessary to civil Government? What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances, they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of Civil authority; in many instances, they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure & perpetuate it, needs them not. Such a government will be best supported by protecting every citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property -- by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another.
of persecution. It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last, in the career of intolerance. The magnanimous sufferer under this cruel scourge in foreign Regions must view the Bill as a Beacon on our Coast, warning him to seek some other haven where liberty and philanthropy in their due extent may offer a more certain repose from his troubles.
10. Because it will have a like tendency to banish our Citizens. The allurements presented by other situations are every day thinning their number. To superadd a fresh motive to emigration by revoking the liberty which they now enjoy would be the same species of folly which has dishonoured and depopulated flourishing kingdoms.
forbearance, [Footnote 3/4] love and charity" which of late mutually prevailed into animosities and jealousies which may not soon be appeased. What mischiefs may not be dreaded should this enemy to the public quiet be armed with the force of a law?
12. Because the policy of the bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity. The first wish of those who enjoy this precious gift ought to be that it may be imparted to the whole race of mankind. Compare the number of those who have as yet received it with the number still remaining under the dominion of false Religions, and how small is the former. Does the policy of the Bill tend to lessen the disproportion? No; it at once discourages those who are strangers to the light of [revelation] from coming into the Region of it and countenances by example the nations who continue in darkness in shutting out those who might convey it to them. Instead of leveling as far as possible every obstacle to the victorious progress of truth, the Bill, with an ignoble and unchristian timidity would circumscribe it with a wall of defence against the encroachments of error.
13. Because attempts to enforce by legal sanctions acts obnoxious to so great a proportion of Citizens tend to enervate the laws in general, and to slacken the bands of Society. If it be difficult to execute any law which is not generally deemed necessary or salutary, what must be the case where it is deemed invalid and dangerous?, and what may be the effect of so striking an example of impotency in the Government on its general authority.
are indeed requested to signify their opinion respecting the adoption of the Bill to the next Session of Assembly." But the representation must be made equal before the voice either of the Representatives or of the Counties will be that of the people. Our hope is that neither of the former will, after due consideration, espouse the dangerous principle of the Bill. Should the event disappoint us, it will still leave us in full confidence that a fair appeal to the latter will reverse the sentence against our liberties.
bound, that the Supreme Lawgiver of the Universe, by illuminating those to whom it is addressed, may, on the one hand, turn their councils from every act which would affront his holy prerogative or violate the trust committed to them, and, on the other, guide them into every measure which may he worthy of his [blessing, may re]dound to their own praise, and may establish more firmly the liberties, the prosperity, and the Happiness of the Commonwealth.
the like restrictions and limitations as are or may be prescribed by the laws for raising the Revenues of this State.
And be it enacted, That, for every sum so paid, the Sheriff or Collector shall give a receipt expressing therein to what society of Christians the person from whom he may receive the same shall direct the money to be paid, keeping a distinct account thereof in his books. The Sheriff of every County, shall, on or before the ___ day of _______ in every year, return to the Court, upon oath, two alphabetical lists of the payments to him made, distinguishing in columns opposite to the names of the persons who shall have paid the same, the society to which the money so paid was by them appropriated, and one column for the names where no appropriation shall be made. One of which lists, after being recorded in a book to be kept for that purpose, shall be filed by the Clerk in his office; the other shall by the Sheriff be fixed up in the Court-house, there to remain for the inspection of all concerned. And the Sheriff, after deducting five percentum for the collection, shall forthwith pay to such person or persons as shall be appointed to receive the same by the Vestry, Elders, or Directors, however denominated of each such society, the sum so stated to be due to that society; or in default thereof, upon the motion of such person or persons to the next or any succeeding Court, execution shall be awarded for the same against the Sheriff and his security, his and their executors or administrators; provided that ten days previous notice be given of such motion. And upon every such execution, the Officer serving the same shall proceed to immediate sale of the estate taken and shall not accept of security for payment at the end of three months, nor to have the goods forthcoming at the day of sale; for his better direction wherein, the Clerk shall endorse upon every such execution that no security of any kind shall be taken.
And be it further enacted, That the money to be raised by virtue of this Act, shall be by the Vestries Elders, or Directors of each religious society, appropriated to a provision for a Minister or Teacher of the Gospel of their denomination, or the providing places of divine worship, and to none other use whatsoever; except in the denominations of Quakers and Menonists, who may receive what is collected from their members, and place it in their general fund, to be disposed of in a manner which they shall think best calculated to promote their particular mode of worship.
And be it enacted, That all sums which at the time of payment to the Sheriff or Collector may not be appropriated by the person paying the same, shall be accounted for with the Court in manner as by this Act is directed, and after deducting for his collection, the Sheriff shall pay the amount thereof (upon account certified by the Court to the Auditors of Public Accounts, and by them to the Treasurer) into the public Treasury, to be disposed of under the direction of the General Assembly, for the encouragement of seminaries of learning within the Counties whence such sums shall arise, and to no other use or purpose whatsoever.
THIS Act shall commence, and be in force, from and after the ___day of _____ in the year ____.
* This copy of the Assessment Bill is from one of the handbills which, on December 24, 1784, when the third reading of the bill was postponed, were ordered distributed to the Virginia counties by the House of Delegates. See Journal of the Virginia House of Delegates, December 24, 1784; Eckenrode, 102-103. The bill is therefore in its final form, for it never again reached the floor of the House. Eckenrode, 113.

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