On the event of America's 223rd birthday, I wanted to make a couple of corrections to popular beliefs regarding religion and the Constitution.
It is a never ending tirade on the part of the ACLU to misstate the aims of the founders of our country. The liberal left as represented by the ACLU has misled the people of this country for far too long.
Their mantra "The Separation of Church and State" and that "The Founders" intended a solid impenetrable wall between the Church and the Government is a FABRICATION and a distortion of a statement that Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to a church. This piece of twisted history was created by none other than "The ACLU" in the late 1940's.
Their contention is that the government of the United States must be divorced completely from religion, any religious influences, symbols, beliefs, etc. Read that as The Christian religion. If you worship demons, goats, trees, or the devil, the government must allow your free exercise of your beliefs.
In his letter, Jefferson was attempting to reassure the church that the "Separation" clause in the 1st Amendment would preclude the Federal government from ever founding a state church. It must be remembered that until 1776, the vast majority of Americans were British subjects and had experienced the Church of England.
Fact: There is NO mention in any official document from the framers of the Constitution regarding "Separation of Church and State"! It is in fact just the opposite. The United States of America was founded by Puritans. At the time of the signing of The Constitution, 98% of the population of the 13 states making up the United States were practicing Christians.
Every one of the signers of that document expressed a belief in the God of the Bible. The vast majority of those men were devout Christians. Many had written regarding their faith.
The Ordinance of 1787, (also known as The Northwest Ordinance) established provisions for governing the Northwest Territory, an area that eventually became the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and part of Minnesota.
For a territory to become a state, it had to demonstrate that it met all the provisions of the Ordinance. The Northwest Ordinance
stands as one of the most important documents in our development as a nation, along with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, The Constitution, signed on September 17, 1787, and The Bill of Rights signed in 1789.
It provided the means by which new territories became states on an equal footing with the 13 original states, assuring the orderly growth of the United States as it expanded westward. Thirty-one states of the Union, including Indiana, achieved statehood under the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787.
The Articles of Compact of the Northwest Ordinance assured citizens of certain basic rights and freedoms, including religious freedom, the right to trial by jury and the writ of habeas corpus, the sanctity of property and contracts, the encouragement of education and the prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude. Many of which rights and freedoms were not a part of the Constitution until passage in 1791 of The Bill of Rights and the passage of amendments following the Civil War.