What did free exercise rights look like at the Founding?
About this video
The speaker explains that at the Founding, free exercise of religion was less controversial than establishment: even states with a 'soft establishment', like Massachusetts, let people follow their conscience. Free exercise meant Catholics, Quakers, Jews and Muslims had an equal right to practise their religion, unlike under the old Church of England regime. The main practical example was accommodating pacifist churches, like Quakers, who refused to take up arms.
You'll be able to
- explain how the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 combined church attendance laws with freedom of conscience.
- describe what free exercise meant to the Founding generation.
- explain how Quakers and other pacifists were accommodated during and after the Revolution.
Key words
- Free exercise clause
- The part of the First Amendment protecting people's right to practise their religion.
- Soft establishment
- Mild government support for religion, believed to help public morality, while still allowing freedom of conscience.
- Conscience
- A person's inner sense of what is morally or religiously right.
- Pacifist
- Someone who refuses to fight or use violence, often for religious reasons.
- Accommodation
- An exception or adjustment to a rule so people can follow their religious beliefs.
Transcript
Video Title: What did free exercise rights look like at the Founding? Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7GkoRSG1w8 Transcript generated by YouTube Transcript Generator - Extract transcripts from any YouTube video instantly at https://transcriptgenerator.org ======================================== The free exercise clause was a less controversial idea. There were those who did believe in some form of soft establishment, believing that was important for public morality. But even that was accompanied by the belief that individuals should be able to follow their own conscience in these matters. For example, in Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which allows laws requiring attendance at church, it goes on to say,
as long as there's one which the individual can conscientiously and conveniently attend, so you are not required to attend church contrary to conscience. There's a free exercise element there. Under the rigid established church of the prior regime, the exercise of any religion outside of the Church of England was strictly limited, and you couldn't have public worship services, except in a very narrow group of Protestant churches. There was even an attempt in 1777 led by the future Chief Justice John J. to exclude Catholics from citizenship in New York. The idea of free exercise is, even if you're a Catholic, even if you're a Quaker, even if you're a Jew, or Muslims were not much on their minds, but they were aware of their existence. Even if you're a Muslim,
you have a right, and equal right with anyone else to be able to practice your religion. The main practical example of this had to do with pacifist churches, particularly Quakers and what we would now call Mennonites who refused, as a matter of conscience to take up arms, to kill other people. At the time, during the American Revolution, where every able bodied man was required to be part of the militia and to take up arms for the Quakers and others to refuse to do that was a very difficult matter, but the Continental Congress called upon the states to provide accommodations for the Quakers from this and when he was president, George Washington, who had, of course, been the Chief general during the Revolution wrote a letter to the
Quakers saying that his fervent belief that the nation should extend every possible accommodation to their beliefs. Some form of exemption and accommodation was a familiar idea.
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