David Barton WallBuilders

Constitutional Provision by David Barton

2010-08-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

Today, the ability to enjoy “the free exercise of religion” and to participate in traditional religious activities is completely subject to the discretion and “good will” of the Court rather than to any constitutional provision. The following cases will illustrate not only the Court’s reliance upon its own recent case-law, but also its avoidance of historical citations that would tend to establish original intent. Abington v. Schempp, 1963

In Abington, 2 the Court struck down the official use of the Bible in public education. Although the Court cited several pre-1947 cases in examining procedural questions, the count is still heavily skewed toward recent precedents. PRE-1947: 112; POST-1947: 356. Epperson v. Arkansas, 1968

This case 3 challenged an Arkansas statute which made it unlawful for schools to teach “that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals.” 4 The U. S. Supreme Court ruled the statute violated the First Amendment. On what sources? PRE-1947: 6; POST-1947: 12.

However, the Arkansas law which the Court struck down in this case was identical to the one that the Tennessee Supreme Court had upheld in the 1927 Scopes decision. Since the U. S. Supreme Court was in effect overturning the Tennessee Supreme Court decision of forty-three years earlier, it had been forced to reexamine that 1925 case, thus injecting several pre-1947 allusions into its decision. When these references are added, the final tally becomes: PRE-1947: 23; POST-1947: 16. Board of Education of Central School District v. Allen, 1968 In this ruling, 6 the Supreme Court found that a New York law requiring public school authorities to lend textbooks to private schools and thus possibly to religious schools was not a violation of the Constitution. What was the basis of this decision? PRE-1947: 8; POST-1947: 27. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971

In this case, the Court struck down two State statutes: a Rhode Island law providing a salary supplement to nonpublic teachers if the “eligible teachers agree not to teach courses in religion,” and a Pennsylvania law which allowed the State to purchase “secular educational services” including textbooks and instructional materials from nonpublic schools if the materials contained no “religious teaching, or the morals or forms of worship of any sect.” Despite the attempt to limit the State aid to purely secular aspects of education, the Court struck down both laws under what is now called the “Lemon Test.” Under this test, a public religious activity is constitutional only if: 1 it has a predominately secular purpose; 2 it neither inhibits nor advances religion; and 3 it creates no “excessive entanglement” between government and religion.

Constitutionality of Legislation by David Barton

2010-08-16T20:30:00.000-07:00

The Court’s decision in this case not only struck down a passive, non-coercive display, it also reflected the hostility which has become characteristic of the Court’s decisions on these issues. Wallace v. Jaffree, 1985

This case was the challenge of an Alabama law which authorized a one minute period of silence for students. When the case reached the federal court of appeals, although the court found that a one-minute period of silence for meditation was constitutional, it nevertheless struck down the law. The Supreme Court upheld that decision. Why? As the court of appeals had explained – and as the Supreme Court had repeated: It is not the activity itself that concerns us; it is the purpose of the activity that we shall scrutinize.

In seeking “the purpose of the activity,” the court had “discovered”: The “prime sponsor” of the bill explained that the bill was an “effort to return voluntary prayer to our public schools.” He intended to provide children the opportunity of sharing in their spiritual heritage of Alabama and of this country. Consequently, based on this “discovery,” the court struck down the voluntary silent activity and declared the statute invalid because the sole purpose was “an effort on the part of the State of Alabama to encourage a religious activity”. It is a law respecting the establishment of religion within the meaning of the First Amendment.

Chief Justice Warren Burger was much disturbed by the Supreme Court’s affirmation of this decision. For example, he was troubled by the judicial “discovery” which had resulted in the ruling:

Curiously, the opinions do not mention that all of the sponsor’s statements relied upon including the statement “inserted” into the Senate Journal were made after the legislature had passed the statute; indeed, the testimony that the Court finds critical was given well over a year after the statute was enacted. As even the Apelles concedes there is not a shred of evidence that the legislature as a whole shared the sponsor’s motive or that a majority in either house was even aware of the sponsor’s view of the bill when it was passed. The sole relevance of the sponsor’s statements, therefore, is that they reflect the personal, subjective motives of a single legislator. No case in the 195-year history of this Court supports the disconcerting idea that post enactment statements by individual legislators are relevant in determining the constitutionality of legislation.

A Great Constitutional Principle by David Barton

2010-08-11T00:19:00.000-07:00

Actually, so few agreed with the Court’s claims of “universally recognized” principles that the U. S. Congress even convened extensive hearings to deal with the widespread public outrage. 44 Nonetheless, in an attempt to purvey credibility, the Court invoked James Madison’s statement that:

Attempts to enforce acts obnoxious to so great a proportion of citizens tend to enervate weaken the laws in general and to slacken the bands of society. The Court equated school prayer to “acts obnoxious to so great proportions of citizens.” This, too, was a patent misrepresentation, evidenced by the fact that so many States permitted school prayers. In fact, the next year the Court weakened its own assertion when it acknowledged that: Only last year 1962 an official survey of the country indicated that less than 3% profess no religion whatever.

With such a strong religious adherence in this country, there simply was no factual basis for the Court’s assertion that the generic acknowledgment of God embodied in the Engel prayer was something obnoxious to the mass of citizens. In concluding its decision, the Engel Court claimed that to allow this voluntary prayer was to establish an “official state religion” a conclusion strongly objected to by Justice Stewart: With all respect, I think the Court has misapplied a great constitutional principle. I cannot see how an “official religion” is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it. On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our Nation. For we deal here not with the establishment of a state church, which would, of course, be constitutionally impermissible, but with whether school children who want to begin their day by joining in prayer must be prohibited from doing so. The Engel decision the second occasion in which the Supreme Court had struck down a voluntary student religious activity was based on a series of poorly grounded arguments punctuated by many erroneous and ill-advised statements.

The Founding Fathers by David Barton

2010-08-05T23:54:00.000-07:00

Other Founders were involved in numerous similar organizations. The evidence is clear that not only can none of them be called an atheist; only the smallest handful would fit today’s definition of a deist. Nevertheless, despite this irrefutable evidence, the charge persists to the contrary as, for example, evidenced in an article in American Heritage by Gordon Wood. Wood amazingly asserted:

The Founding Fathers were at most deists and were a very thin veneer on their society. In a national article, Steven Morris similarly claimed:

The early presidents and patriots were generally deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the relevance of the Bible. Wood, Morris, and all who make such broad charges are totally incorrect, deliberately ignoring all historical facts to the contrary. They also randomly, recklessly, and even unethically impute the term “deist” to Founders who would vehemently deny it if they were alive today. For example, some contemporary works incorrectly assert that Jefferson called himself a deist. Yet historical records are clear that not only did Jefferson not call himself a deist, he called himself a Christian:

I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. Although Jefferson did call himself a Christian, he would probably fail the standard by any orthodox definition, for he viewed Jesus only as a great teacher and not as Divine.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that Jefferson did not call himself a deist; he called himself a Christian. Even though a very few of the Founders did consider themselves deists for example, Franklin did call himself a “deist”, the definition of a deist in that day is totally different from today’s definition, evidenced by the fact that Franklin totally rejected the “clockmaker” concept and believed that prayer was worthwhile and that God did intervene in our daily affairs. The evidence is clear that atheism was rejected by the Founding Fathers and even the deism of that day was strongly frowned upon by most of them.

Treaty of Tripoli by David Barton

2010-07-29T22:32:00.000-07:00

The 1797 Treaty of Tripoli is the source of Washington’s supposed statement. That treaty, one of several with Tripoli, was negotiated during the “Barbary Powers Conflict,” which began shortly after the Revolutionary War and continued through the Presidencies of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. The Muslim Barbary Powers Tunis, Morocco, Algiers, and Tripoli were warring against what they claimed to be the “Christian” nations England, France, Spain, Denmark, and the United States. In 1801, Tripoli even declared war against the United States, thus constituting America’s first official war as an established independent nation.

Throughout this long conflict, the four Barbary Powers regularly attacked undefended American merchant ships. Not only were their cargoes easy prey but the Barbary Powers were also capturing and enslaving “Christian” seamen in retaliation for what had been done to them by the “Christians” of previous centuries e.g., the Crusades and Ferdinand and Isabella’s expulsion of Muslims from Granada.

In an attempt to secure a release of captured seamen and a guarantee of unmolested shipping in the Mediterranean, President Washington dispatched envoys to negotiate treaties with the Barbary nations. Concurrently, he encouraged the construction of American naval warships to defend the shipping and confront the Barbary “pirates” a plan not seriously pursued until President John Adams created a separate Department of the Navy in 1798.

The American envoys negotiated numerous treaties of “Peace and Amity” with the Muslim Barbary nations to ensure “protection” of American commercial ships sailing in the Mediterranean. However, the terms of the treaty frequently were unfavorable to America, either requiring her to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars of “tribute” i.e., official extortion to each country to receive a “guarantee” of safety or to offer other “considerations” e.g., providing a warship as a “gift” to Tripoli, a “gift” frigate to Algiers, paying $525,000 to ransom captured American seamen from Algiers, etc.. The 1797 treaty with Tripoli was one of the many treaties in which each country officially recognized the religion of the other in an attempt to prevent further escalation of a “Holy War” between Christians and Muslims. Consequently, Article XI of that treaty stated:

The Formal Peace Treaty by David Barton

2010-07-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

Three months later, on September 8, 1783, the formal peace treaty with Great Britain was signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay. Like so many of the other official records of the Revolution, that document, too, openly acknowledged God. The opening line of the peace treaty declared: In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity.

When word reached America that the peace was now official, there was first a time of great celebration; and then on October 17, 1783, Congress appointed James Duane, Samuel Huntington, and Samuel Holten to prepare a proclamation for a day of prayer and thanksgiving. Congress approved that proclamation on October 18, 1783, and distributed it among the States, announcing: Whereas it hath pleased the Supreme Ruler of all human events to dispose the hearts of the late belligerent powers to put a period to the effusion of human blood by proclaiming a cessation of all hostilities by sea and land, and these United States are not only happily rescued from the dangers and calamities to which they have been so long exposed, but their freedom, sovereignty and independence ultimately acknowledged.

And whereas in the progress of a contest on which the most essential rights of human nature depended, the interposition of Divine Providence in our favor hath been most abundantly and most graciously manifested, and the citizens of these United States have every reason for praise and gratitude to the God of their salvation. Impressed, therefore, with an exalted sense of the blessings by which we are surrounded, and of our entire dependence on that Almighty Being from whose goodness and bounty they are derived, the United States in Congress assembled, do recommend it to the several States a day of public thanksgiving that all the people may then assemble to celebrate with grateful hearts and united voices the praises of their Supreme and all bountiful Benefactor for his numberless favors and mercies and above all that he hath been pleased to continue to us the light of the blessed Gospel and secured to us in the fullest extent the rights of conscience in faith and worship.

Many of the State Governors also issued their own individual proclamations for days of prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving, including John Hancock of Massachusetts, William Livingston of New Jersey, John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, and others. This type of open acknowledgment of and reliance on God by our civic leaders was common practice. In addition to the fifteen national Congressional proclamations issued throughout the Revolution, literally scores of similar proclamations often strongly and openly Christian were issued by individual Governors for their States.

The Rights of the Colonists by David Barton

2010-07-15T01:19:00.000-07:00

Samuel Adams assumed personal responsibility for the first goal of the Committees, and his resulting work, “The Rights of the Colonists,” was first circulated on November 20, 1772. In that work, Adams urged Americans to study the Scriptures to understand the basis of the struggle to preserve their God-given rights. He declared: The Rights of the Colonists as Christians. These may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.

In fact, the spiritual nature of the American resistance became so clear that even in the debates of the British Parliament: Sir Richard Sutton read a copy of a letter relative to the government of America from a Crown-appointed governor in America to the Board of Trade showing that if you ask an American, “Who is his master?” He will tell you he has none, nor any governor but Jesus Christ. On March 5, 1774, in an oration commemorating the Boston Massacre of 1770 in which British troops had opened fire on the Americans, John Hancock proclaimed:

I have the most animating confidence that the present noble struggle for liberty will terminate gloriously for America. And let us play the man for our God, and for the cities of our God; whilst we are using the means in our power, let us humbly commit our righteous cause to the great Lord of the Universe, who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity. And having secured the approbation of our hearts by a faithful and unwearied discharge of our duty to our country, let us joyfully leave our concerns in the hands of Him who raiseth up and pulleth down the empires and kingdoms of the world as He pleases; and with cheerful submission to His sovereign will, devoutly say, “Although the fig tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail and the field shall yield not meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet we will rejoice in the Lord, we will joy in the God of our salvation” HABAKKUK 3:17-18.

As a consequence of the Colonists expressing their frustration at the “Boston Tea Party” following eight years of rejected appeals by the Crown, Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill to blockade Boston harbor. That bill, designed to eliminate all trade to or from that key port, was to take effect on June 1, 1774. How did the American Colonists respond? News accounts in Great Britain reported: The province of Virginia appointed the first of June, the day on which the Boston Port Bill took place, to be set apart for fasting, prayer, and humiliation, to implore the Divine interposition to avert the heavy calamity which threatened destruction to their civil rights with the evils of a civil war; and to give one heart and one mind to the people firmly to oppose every injury to the American rights. This example was either followed or a similar resolution adopted almost everywhere and the first of June became a general day of prayer and humiliation throughout the continent. Mercy Otis Warren, one of the first historians of the American Revolution and the wife of a patriot, reported that not only did the Colonists pray, but they also began to organize relief for the Bostonians.

Liberty of Conscience by David Barton

2010-07-09T00:39:00.000-07:00

Commonwealth v. Nesbit, 1859 Supreme Court of Pennsylvania In this final case on Blue Laws, the court ruled that such laws were both civil and religious in nature. It also took time to explain that such laws did not violate the constitutional guarantee for “liberty of conscience,” because liberty of conscience was indeed to be protected: We are not forgetting that the public acts of our Pennsylvania ancestors abound with declarations in favor of liberty of conscience. However, the court pointed out that “liberty of conscience” had its limitations: They the Founders could not admit this liberty of conscience as a civil justification of human sacrifices, or parricide killing one’s parents or close kin, infanticide, or thuggism religious murders, or of such modes of worship as the disgusting and corrupting rites of the Dionysia, and Aphrodisia, and Eleusinia, and other festivals of Greece and Rome.

They did not mean that the pure moral customs which Christianity has introduced should be without legal protection because some pagan, or other religionist, or anti-religionist, should advocate as matter of conscience concubinage, polygamy, incest, free love, and free divorce, or any of them. They did not mean that phallic processions and satyric dances and obscene songs and indecent statues and paintings of ancient or of modern paganism might be introduced under the profession of religion, or pleasure, or conscience, to seduce the young and the ignorant into a Corinthian degradation; to offend the moral sentiment of a refined Christian people; and to compel Christian modesty to associate with the nudity and impurity of Polynesian or of Spartan women.

No Christian people could possibly allow such things. By our laws against vice and immorality we do not mean to enforce religion; we admit that to be impossible. But we do mean to protect our customs, no matter that they may have originated in our religion; for they are essential parts of our social life. Instinctively we defend and protect them. It is mere social self-defense. Law can never become entirely infidel; for it is essentially founded on the moral customs of men and the very generating principle of these is most frequently religion.

Christianity of the Common Law by David Barton

2010-07-02T22:24:00.000-07:00

The supreme court responded: The jury finds a malicious intention in the speaker to vilify the Christian religion and the Scriptures and this court cannot look beyond the record nor take any notice of the allegation that the words were uttered by the defendant, a member of a debating association which convened weekly for discussion and mutual information. That there is an association in which so serious a subject is treated with so much levity, indecency and scurrility vulgar and obscene language I am sorry to hear, for it would prove a nursery of vice, a school of preparation to qualify young men for the gallows and young women for the brothel, and there is not a skeptic of decent manners and good morals who would not consider such debating clubs as a common nuisance and disgrace to the city.

It was the outpouring of an invective so vulgarly shocking and insulting that the lowest grade of civil authority ought not to be subject to it, but when spoken in a Christian land and to a Christian audience, the highest offence contra bonus mores against proper standards. Having rejected the defense argument concerning a debating society, the court concluded by refuting the defense contention that the constitution disregarded Christianity: The assertion is once more made that Christianity never was received as part of the common law of this Christian land; and it is added that if it was it was virtually repealed by the Constitution of the United States and of this State.

We will first dispose of what is considered the grand objection the constitutionality of Christianity for, in effect, that is the question. Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men. Thus this wise legislature framed this great body of laws for a Christian country and Christian people.

This is the Christianity of the common law and thus it is irrefragably undeniably proved that the laws and institutions of this State are built on the foundation of reverence for Christianity. In this the Constitution of the United States has made no alteration nor in the great body of the laws which was an incorporation of the common law doctrine of Christianity. No free government now exists in the world unless where Christianity is acknowledged and is the religion of the country. Its foundations are broad and strong and deep it is the purest system of morality, the firmest auxiliary and only stable support of all human laws.

The Pagan World by David Barton

2010-06-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

For example, Supreme Court Justice James Iredell observed: According to the modern definition [1788] of an oath, it is considered a “solemn appeal to the Supreme Being for the truth of what is said by a person who believes in the existence of a Supreme Being and in a future state of rewards and punishments according to that form which would bind his conscience most.” Signer of the Constitution Rufus King explained: In our laws by the oath which they prescribe, we appeal to the Supreme Being so to deal with us hereafter as we observe the obligation of our oaths.

The Pagan world were and are without the mighty influence of this principle which is proclaimed in the Christian system their morals were destitute of its powerful sanction while their oaths neither awakened the hopes nor fears which a belief in Christianity inspires. George Washington, too, believed that an oath inherently contained a sense of religious obligation. In his “Farewell Address,” he asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths?

And John Adams similarly declared: Oaths in this country are as yet universally considered as sacred obligations. Also indicative of this belief is the fact that when the convention of South Carolina ratified the Constitution in 1788, it proposed that in Article VI the word “other” should be inserted after the word “no,” implying that an oath or affirmation to support the Constitution was itself a religious test. Numerous other sources further illustrate the fact that the taking of an oath presupposed a belief in God. For example, the 1799 Kentucky Constitution declared: The manner of administering an oath or affirmation shall be esteemed by the General Assembly the Legislature the most solemn appeal to God.

Other constitutions contained the same declaration. Chancellor James Kent a Father of American Jurisprudence noted that an oath of office was a “religious solemnity” and that to administer an oath was “to call in the aid of religion.” In the case People v. Ruggles (1811), Kent ruled that “Christianity was parcel of the law and to cast contumelious insulting reproaches upon it tended to weaken the efficacy effectiveness of oaths,” again affirming the intrinsic relationship between taking an oath and a belief in God.

Religion and the Constitution by David Barton

2010-06-18T01:19:00.000-07:00

The question of what the Founders intended as the proper relationship between religious expressions and “public” life (whether in education, law, government, or throughout society in general) is clearly documented in their numerous writings on this subject. Those records establish their intent and thus clarify their two references to religion in the Constitution.

The first reference is in Article VI, Section 3: No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. The second is in the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Through the years, these two constitutional requirements have formed the basis of many judicial decisions. Historically, legal scholars have examined both phrases when seeking the intent of either; the understanding of each was made more complete through the examination of both. The goal was always to identify and establish the original context and purpose of those two religious provisos before attempting to apply them.

However, in Everson (1947) the modern Court discarded this objective. It first divorced the First Amendment from its original purpose and then reinterpreted it without regard to either historical context or previous judicial decisions. The result was that the Court abandoned the traditional constitutional meaning of “religion” as a single denomination or system of worship and instead substituted a new “modern” concept which even now remains vague and nebulous, having changed several times in recent years.

By this substitution, the Court created a new and foreign purpose for the First Amendment and completely rewrote its scope of protections and prohibitions. In attaching today’s “enlightened” perceptions to yesterday’s acts, the Court demonstrated an unscholarly, and even disquieting approach to both law and history. As explained by Founder Noah Webster, † not only misinterpretation but even serious error can result when original meanings are ignored: In the lapse of two or three centuries, changes have taken place which in particular passages obscure the sense of the original languages.

The effect of these changes is that some words are being now used in a sense different from that which they had and thus present wrong signification or false ideas. Whenever words are understood in a sense different from that which they had when introduced mistakes may be very injurious. To avoid the “injurious mistakes” which may arise from misinterpreting the First Amendment, one need simply establish the original intent of that Amendment.

Multiple Ballots by David Barton

2010-06-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

The fourth device was suppressive election procedures. This included the use of “multiple ballots.” That is, a Republican voter might be required to cast a ballot in up to eight separate locations – or sometimes to vote for each individual Republican on the ballot at a separate location – before the ballot would be counted. Democratic officials often failed to inform black voters of this complicated procedure and their ballots were therefore disqualified. 320 Democrats also used what were called “hide-and-seek polling places,” moving voting boxes to unknown locations at the last minute and then posting armed guards in case any black should stumble upon the hidden voting box. Democrats used discriminatory literacy tests to prevent African Americans from voting.

The fifth device included the use of so-called Black Codes to restrict the freedoms and economic opportunities of blacks. Rep. Robert Brown Elliott reported:

Among the first acts of legislation adopted by several of the southern Democratic States were laws which imposed upon the colored race onerous oppressive disabilities and burdens and curtailed their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value. . . . They colored citizens were, in some States, forbidden to appear in the towns. . . . They were required to reside on and cultivate the soil – without the right to purchase or own it. They were excluded from any occupations of gain i.e., paying jobs and were not permitted to give testimony in the courts in any case where a white man was a party.

Beginning as early as 1865, southern Democrats passed Black Codes to prevent blacks from holding office, owning agricultural property, entering towns without permission, serving on juries, racially intermarrying, or voting. They even passed – in flagrant violation of the U. S. Constitution – laws preventing blacks from owning knifes or firearms, thus exposing them to Klan violence without any way to defend themselves. National observers at that time concluded that the Democratic South was simply trying to institute a new form of slavery through the use of these Black Codes. Representative Richard Cain of South Carolina agreed: republican U. S. rep. Robert brown Elliott democratic laws left blacks unprotected against the Klan.

When the government of the United States had made the black man free – when Congress, in the greatness of its magnanimity generosity prepared to give to every class of men their rights, and in reconstructing the southern States guaranteed to all the people their liberties – you Democrats refused to acquiesce in agree to the laws enacted by Congress – you Democrats refused to “accept the situation” – to recognize the rights of that class of men in the land. You sought to make the reconstruction acts a nullity, if possible. You sought to re-enslave the black man by every means in your power.

Southern Democracy by David Barton

2010-06-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

Democrats understood how important it was to their survival to prevent blacks from voting. In fact, an illustration from that period showed an allegory of the Bible story of Samson, who lost his strength when his hair was cut. In that illustration, the woman – named “Southern Democracy” – has used her razor – called “the lost cause regained” – to southern democrats removed voting rights from African Americans democratic groups rejoicing over the loss of voting rights for African Americans Democratic leaders of that day, including General Nathan Bedford Barbecue” and that Democrats are burning various books in the foreground, including the Holy Bible. As this illustration confirmed, limiting black voting became cut the black Samson’s hair and cause him to lose his strength; and what is his hair – his strength? It is called “suffrage,” or voting. With the strength – or the vote – of black Americans removed, various democratic groups and leaders were rejoicing in the background: Confederates, the KKK, pro-slavery forces, and several famous Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the Klan. By the way, notice the phrase “The Democratic the major goal for southern Democrats.

Given the explicit federal voting protections that had been established by the 14th and 15th Amendments and the numerous federal civil rights laws, it was no easy task for Democrats to circumvent those protections. It required devious and cunning methods, and southern Democratic legislatures implemented almost a dozen separate devices to deprive blacks of political representation and to keep them from voting.

The first device was the poll tax, a fee paid by a voter before he could vote. The fee was high enough that most poor were unable to pay the tax and therefore was unable to vote; and while some southern whites were poor, nearly all southern blacks were poor, having just emerged from slavery and not yet having established an independent means of living. Democrats in Tennessee enacted a poll tax in 1870, as did Democrats in Delaware in 1873. In 1874, Texas proposed a poll tax right after Democrats reclaimed power from Republicans; in 1876, North Carolina enacted a poll tax; 315 and other Democratic States followed.

Literacy tests were the second means that Democrats used to disenfranchise blacks. Literacy tests required a voter to demonstrate a certain level of specific knowledge before he could vote. In some cases, the test was 20 pages long for blacks, and those administering the tests were white Democrats who nearly always ruled that blacks were illiterate. Don’t misunderstand: literacy tests were not about whether someone could read or write; this literacy tests often contained questions requiring knowledge of obscure and little-known facts. For example, in Alabama the test included questions such as, “Where do residential electors cast ballots for president?” or “Name the rights a person has after he has been indicted by a grand jury.” Ironically, Democrats steadfastly opposed sound education for blacks but then required that blacks have an above average education before they could vote! Clearly, these southern Democrats did not intend for blacks to vote.

The third device used to disenfranchise black Americans was “Grandfather” clauses. “Grandfather” clauses were laws passed by Democratic legislatures allowing only those individuals to vote whose father or grandfather had been registered to vote prior to the passage of the 15th Amendment. Since voting in the South for decades prior to that Amendment had been almost exclusively by whites, this law ensured that poor and illiterate whites could vote but not blacks.

The Democratic Platform by David Barton

2010-05-28T00:27:00.000-07:00

Even with the massive voter intimidation in Wade Hampton’s election, it was still so close that no winner emerged. After massive controversy, confusion, and finally court intervention, the Democrat Hampton was declared the winner and became governor, but only under extremely questionable circumstances. 163 In fact, the editorial cartoons in Harper’s following that election showed a triumphant Democrat standing over the bodies of slaughtered African American voters.

Considering the Klan-like support that Hampton received, it is no wonder that when he became the Democratic governor of the State, civil rights reforms in South Carolina came to a halt.

However, returning to General Hampton’s role at the Democratic National Convention of 1868, as a member of the Resolutions Committee, he inserted a clause in the Democratic platform declaring that the civil rights laws of the Congress were “unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void.” 166 In fact, throughout that platform Democrats lashed out against the Republican civil rights measures, demanding “the abolition of the Freedmen’s Bureau and all political instrumentalities designed to secure Negro supremacy.” That platform further complained: Instead of restoring the Union, it the Republican Party has – so far as in its power – dissolved it, and subjected ten States, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and Negro supremacy.

Clearly, the errant claims in this Democratic plank are ludicrous, for the years from 1865-1868 were marked not by “profound peace” but rather by profound violence, characterized by the rapid and expansive growth of the Klan and similar organizations perpetrating numerous deadly attacks against African Americans. The ten States that Democrats claim were “subjected to military despotism and Negro supremacy” were ten of the Democratic States that had seceded to form the slave-holding Confederate States of America, and the “despotism” to which they were subjected was nothing more than the requirements that they recognize the civil rights of African Americans. Ironically, Democrats were so accustomed to the suppression of black Americans that simply to give them equality was absurdly considered to be “Negro supremacy.” To Democrats in that day, equality for blacks – that is, making blacks and whites equal before the law – meant “Negro supremacy”!

The other featured portrait in the handbill of the 1868 national Democratic delegates was that of Rebel General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest had been a slave-trader from Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest Tennessee and was the Rebel General who conducted the massacre of black soldiers in the infamous bloody episode at Fort Pillow. After the black Union soldiers had surrendered, Forrest ordered them slaughtered on the spot, using some of the most barbaric and inhumane tortures and atrocities available, including nailing black soldiers to the sides of buildings and then burning down the buildings, drowning others, and even burying black soldiers alive. 169 After the War, General Nathan Bedford Forrest became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan 170 – and he was an honored leader at the Democratic National Convention of 1868! Given the composition of the Democratic Party, it is no wonder that not one of the Democrats in Congress voted for the 14th Amendment to secure civil rights for black Americans at the State level.

2010-05-19T00:06:00.000-07:00

In its first ten years inside the Capitol, the Court bounced around from location to location – from various committee rooms to library rooms to whatever was available. Then, in 1810, when the Senate left its original chamber and moved directly upstairs to what is now called the Old Senate Chamber, the Supreme Court inherited the vacated downstairs Senate chamber. early city plan for washington, d. c.

It was in that room – the basement of the Old Senate Chamber – that the Supreme Court found its first permanent home and the location that it kept for the next 50 years. Then, when the Senate vacated its second home in the Old Senate Chamber and moved into its third and current home, the Supreme Court moved upstairs to possess the again vacated Senate Chamber.

David Barton explains that the Supreme Court had no building of its own was intentional; it reflected the Founders’ design that the Court should have no major role in shaping policy in the nation. Simply look at the Constitution for proof: Article I deals with the powers of the Congress; Article II with the powers of the President, and Article III with the powers of the Supreme Court. Article I is by far the longest of those three articles, and Article III is obviously the shortest.

Even though the Founders believed that a Supreme Court was important, it was so insignificant in the overall view of government, that John Jay, the original Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, retired from his position after only six years because, as he observed, the Supreme Court would never amount to anything much. 79 In fact, for the first 10 years of its existence, the entire Supreme Court term lasted less than two weeks each year; and for the next fifty years, the Court still met for only six to eight weeks a year. 80

It was not until 1935 – nearly a century-and-a-half after the Founders had written the Constitution – that a separate building was built behind the Capitol to house the Supreme Court, the home it occupies today. And it was not until two decades after this, in the late 1950s, that the Supreme Court, under the guidance of its activist Chief Justice, Earl Warren, first began to meet for nearly nine months 81 out of each year – a practice which still continues today.

Justice on Court By David Barton

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Yet, despite the Court’s original lack of stature, there were several interesting practices of the Court which contribute much to our rich spiritual heritage. One of those practices was instituted by the first Justices on the Court.

According to David Barton there were six original Justices appointed to the Supreme Court by President George Washington. They included its Chief Justice, John Jay, an author of The Federalist Papers; three signers of the Constitution: James Wilson, John Blair, and John Rutledge (who later became the Court’s second Chief Justice); and James Iredell and William Cushing (who helped secure the ratification of the Constitution).

In its first years, the Supreme Court functioned much like the old circuit courts; it traveled from place to place across America to hear cases and to convene grand juries. One of the practices of the Court – a practice conducted under these original Justices – was the regular offering of prayers in the Courtroom. 82

According to the records of the Supreme Court as well as the newspapers of the day, juries in the Supreme Court did not begin their work until after a minister had come into the Courtroom and prayed – for the Court, the jurors, and their deliberations! In fact, a newspaper account in the Columbian Centinel of May 16, 1792, reports very simply:

[O]n Monday, Chief Justice [John] Jay gave a charge to the Grand Jury, replete with his usual perspicuity and elegance. The prayer was made by the Rev. Dr. Parker. His Excellency, the Vice-President of the United States [John Adams], was in Court. 83

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS By David Barton

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David Barton explains that our Founding Fathers never saw such practices as a problem, for
they never envisioned any hostility toward religion or any exclusion of religious faith or practice from public life. This was especially true when it came to religion and the law. Explicit proof of this is offered by one of the Court’s original members – Justice James Wilson.

Before becoming a member of the Supreme Court, Wilson had signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (one of only six Founders to hold that distinction). At the Constitutional Convention, Wilson had been its second most-active member, speaking on the floor of the Convention 168 times.

James Wilson is credited with starting the first organized legal training in America for law students. 84 He wrote several legal works, including a 1792 Commentary on the Constitution of the United States of America, and a three-volume set of legal lectures, delivered to law students while Wilson was sitting as a Justice on the Court. Notice what Justice Wilson taught his students about the relationship between law and religion:

It should always be remembered that this law, . . . made for men or for nations, flows from the same Divine source: it is the law of God. . . . What we do, indeed, must be founded on what He has done; and the deficiencies of our laws must be supplied by the perfections of His. Human law must rest its authority, ultimately, upon the authority of that law which is Divine. . . . We now see the deep and the solid foundations of human law. . . .