religion

Articles 5, 6, and 7

Video

Written Component

During the Constitutional Convention, delegates from around the new United States of America came together to formulate a strong nation to replace the weak confederacy that emerged after the Revolutionary War. Article Five of said Constitution was written to give the country the ability to change as the world around it changed. Article Six was created to hold up the financial reputation of America by transferring debts, as well as sustain the standards set in earlier articles as the supreme law of the United States. Article Seven was created to streamline the process of ratifying the Constitution. 

Article Five spells out the process that the federal government has to go through in order to amend the Constitution. Either Congress can present an amendment by gathering two-thirds of both the House and the Senate to approve the amendment, or if the legislatures of two-thirds of the states come together to propose an amendment, Congress will call a convention and amendments will be proposed. Following this, three-fourths of state legislators must ratify the amendment. Congress could also decide to have the states call a convention purely to ratify an amendment. A final clause was tacked on to the end of this amendment stating that no amendment could be passed inhibiting the slave trade until 1808. Article Six transfers the debt and prior treaties from the national government under the Articles of Confederation to the new Constitution. It also states that the federal government (and therefore the Constitution) is the supreme authority in America. Finally, it specifies that oaths should be made by legislators and executives to the people of the United States instead of a religious test as a barrier to entry. Article Seven of the Constitution states that only nine states are required to ratify the Constitution for it to be the binding federal document, and it lists all 13 states and the order in which they will call a Convention to vote on the validity of the Constitution. 

An example of a complex ratification process is the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), an amendment to codify the equality of the sexes in law, was ratified by 30 states within the first year of its proposal but it met opposition after this 30-state benchmark over concerns that women would no longer be exempt from compulsory military service as well as other issues. There are other cases of discrepancy between federal and state power like some campaign finance laws and the legalization of marijuana in spite of the Controlled Substances Act.

During the initial creation of the country, the goal was as little central regulation as possible, but this turned out to be a weak way to organize the United States as many consequential regulations changed from state to state. The Constitution’s significance comes from the combination of general principles found in state Constitutions and rolled them into one document that set the federal government as the highest rule of law in the United States. Instead of changing the federal supremacy clause, the Constitution should clarify the Elasticity Clause or refine the Tenth Amendment to clarify specifically how elastic the powers of the federal government is or where state jurisdiction starts. 

Bibliography

Congress, The Federal Status of Marijuana and the Expanding Policy Gap with States, H.R. Doc., at 3 (Mar. 6, 2023). Accessed June 2, 2023. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12270.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Equal Rights Amendment.” Britannica. Last modified April 27, 2023. Accessed June 2, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Equal-Rights-Amendment.

Oyez. “Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee V. Federal Election Commission.” In Oyez. Last modified 2023. Accessed June 2, 2023. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1995/95-489.

Maddy Kim’s Constitution Project

Video

Written Component

According to the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses in Amendment I: the federal government will not have a state religion, or support or restrict any religion or religious practice. In the original articles, Article 6, Section 3 provides the only reference to religion and prohibition of a religious test for holding office.

 

The Establishment Clause sought to address the religious tyranny of the British. During England’s reign over the colonies, the Church of England legally required southern colonists to pay religious taxes and often attend church services. Some scholars interpret the clause as a check on religious tyranny. Additionally, due to most of the framers being Deists, the meaning of the clause based on the intentions of the framers indicates that the Establishment Clause aims to avoid persecution. Other scholars assert that the clause is a co-guarantor of religious freedom, designed to reduce the role of religion in American life, and promote the free practice of a variety of religions. These interpretations are two of a variety that have been used in some of the Supreme Court’s best-known Establishment Clause based decisions. In Engel v. Vitale (1962), the Court deemed it unconstitutional for public school children to be led in prayer or read from the bible as the government had no business drafting any formal prayers for any part of its population. 

 

The Free Exercise Clause states that Congress will not prohibit the free exercise of a religion. The clause was responding to the fact that much of the population of colonial America consisted of immigrants and oppressed peoples who sought to escape religious persecution and regarded the protection of religious exercise an inalienable right. The freedom to worship in accordance with an individual’s belief was widely supported by many of the American population. The Free Exercise Clause has been interpreted as a claim that religious liberty is equal liberty, and also that free exercise provides necessary protection for diversity and freedom. As explained by Frederik Gediks, a professor of law, the guarantee of free religious exercise was to prevent government discrimination or abuse on the basis of religion. Others maintain that this clause protects human diversity. Though the clause may seem very short and simple, there have been a variety of supreme court cases involving the Free Speech Clause that contradict each other. When discussing religious exemptions including Amish and Jewish practices, the Supreme Court has changed its perspective multiple times (as explained in my video!).

Amalia – The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment

Video

Written Component

The Establishment Clause of the Bill of Rights was an agreement of the populous that there should be no federally established church. This decision was reached because before the revolution the Church of England was federally mandated in the southern colonies, while the northern colonies had their Puritan establishments. These different establishments bred dissenters, who were often punished for preaching without a license or refusing to pay taxes to a church they disagreed with. The topic of religion caused conflict in the years before the revolution, dividing the people of this new country instead of bringing them together under one previously imagined, now real, community and shared identity.

The Establishment Clause of the Bill of Rights is commonly understood to have prohibited the government from establishing a state-mandated or federal religion for the nation, effectively separating church and state in the United States. 

This clause has been publicly understood to have separated the church and state in the United States, however many people have had interpretations of this clause as it regards government funding and government-sponsored prayer. Many of the matters of debate that spawn from this clause connect to religion and how it should interact with public education, all according to how the courts interpret the constitution. In relation to government funding, some argue the government must remain neutral between religious and non-religious institutions that provide education or other social services. Others argue that taxpayer funds shouldn’t be given to religious institutions if they might be used to further religious ideas because it violates the separation between church and state that the clause set in place. Through Everson v. Board of Education (1947) and Board of Education v. Allen (1968) all students of religious schools gained access to transportation and textbook funds. As well, Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995) deemed it unconstitutional under free speech and free exercise principles to exclude otherwise eligible recipients from government assistance because their activity is religious in nature. On the topic of government-sanctioned prayer the courts determined it unconstitutional for public schools to lead students in religious activities, even voluntary in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963). These decisions, though controversial to much of the public, were not to the Justices: it would have been seen as government sponsored religion which goes against the Establishment Clause’s separation between church and state.

The Establishment Clause protects citizens rights to practicing their religion freely, without persecution, also ensuring that the government of the United States isn’t biased towards certain religions. This clause ensures that the obligatory religion that the colonists experienced under the monarchy could not happen in their new nation. The Establishment Clause also protects those facing religious persecution. With religious tolerance being written as an amendment to the Constitution, America became a place of refuge for those experiencing religious oppression; many Jewish people in the early 20th century who fled pogroms (planned massacres of Jewish people in eastern Europe) were able to make a safe life for themselves and their families in the United States. The religious tolerance that the Establishment Clause implemented has had a long lasting impact on the peoples and cultures that make up America to this day as well as how cases pertaining to religion are handled in federal Courts.