The End of State-Supported Religion Barnes v. Inhabitants of First Parish in Falmouth – Massachusetts, 1810 (6 Mass. 401); Adams v. Howe – Massachusetts, 1817 (14 Mass. 340); Oakes v. Hill – Massachusetts, 1830 (10 Pick. 333)
The Battle Over Religious
Freedom and Blasphemy
| Congregational Church, Easton, Connecticut - courtesy Doug Kerr and Wikimedia Commons “The great error lies in not distinguishing between liberty of conscience in religious opinions and worship, and the right of appropriating money by the state. … The object of public religious instruction is to teach and to enforce by suitable arguments, the practice of a system of correct morals among the people, and to form and cultivate reasonable and just habits and manners; by which every man’s person and property are protected from outrage, and his personal and social enjoyments promoted and multiplied.” – Justice Theophilus Parsons, in Barnes Whether [principles of state-supported religion] are consistent with the natural rights of man … whether civil power can ever, righteously or advantageously, be exerted to enforce the worship of … whether the forced observances of the external rites and ordinances of religion tend to promote a devotional spirit and sincere piety – are questions … unsuitable for judicial investigation.” – Justice Marcus Morton, in Oakes Abner Kneeland - courtesy New York Historical Society and Wikimedia Commons “Anger towards God, indignity to him, to our Saviour, or the Holy Ghost, a disposition to scoff at religion, do not seem to me to be the subjects of human punishment … [they] cannot be reached by a human tribunal. But if made known, they would not be the subject of punishment, because they inflicted no injury upon any human being … It is only the only the injury to civil society which can give civil government jurisdiction of them.” – Justice Marcus Morton (dissenting), in Kneeland
“[Blasphemy] was to be understood only in the qualified sense that the divine origin and truth of Christianity being in fact generally admitted by the people, the public sentiment on that subject should not be maliciously assailed. … [This] divested of all legal meaning the phrase that Christianity is law. … There has been a greater change in the prevalent ideas of New England Protestants in regard to the attributes of the Deity, in a century, than among the Jews for thousands of years. And if the court should assume to put a stop to that innovation, they would usurp the spiritual jurisdiction of the extinct inquisitions of the ancient Catholic, Episcopalian, and Calvinistic churches, and there would be an end of the religious liberty so solemnly and amply guaranteed.” – Chief Justice Charles Doe (dissenting), in Hale |
EMPIRE OF LAWS - The Legal History of the 50 American States > 1. NEW ENGLAND LEGAL HISTORY > 1.2 New England (1787-1833): The Early National Era >